A Stained Fang
by cordo12
Summary: What do you do when you're stuck between yourself, a rock, and a hard place? Do the choices you make then define you? Is it dehumanizing to say one or the other? Does anyone have the right to say so? Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Not in this world. Inuzuka OC SI.
1. Chapter 1

Yup, I'm doing this.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. Given the site this is on, it shouldn't be a surprise.

* * *

Stuck between both small and big balls of fur, waggling and stumbling, struggling to just _move_. Caught between the legion of overactive fur balls, thrown to every edge of the pen.

Eventually, one of them flung backwards, catching me at my side and had me ricocheting into the backside of another.

Dog butt. _Lovely_. To be perfectly honest, I should have seen this coming. Given my last name, this is the one thing I shouldn't have been surprised over. I should be perfectly happy with this situation. Rolling around in the dirt along with the rest of the ninken, having the time of my life. Thing is, I don't. Don't get me wrong, I like dogs and all. But being one? No thanks. So how did I end up in this situation? Well I don't really know, but maybe recounting the past can get me some answers. You see, I'm not _meant_ to be here. No I'm not _that_ kid. I'm being as serious as possible about this. I'm not meant to be here because this is not my world. I'm not meant to be in a world that selectively breeds and trains children to be emotionless killers. Not meant to be in a world that starts a world war every other decade. And definitely not meant to be in a world where people can literally split the seas and wreak havoc on the earth, able to bend _reality itself_ on a whim. This is a manga. Or an anime, either one or a strange mixture of both, I don't really know. Simply put, it's the Naruto universe.

I never truly believed in the concept of reincarnation. Sure, it sounded nice. But it was just another half-hearted explanation for the afterlife among the many many others before it. No one truly knew what happened after death. But that's the only logical explanation for my being here that I can think of. As logical as you can get with death, at least.

In the last world, I was an average guy. Just about ready to head off to college, filled with hopes and dreams (if a bit apprehensive) for the future. A little introverted, but not enough to actively keep me from socializing. I didn't have any major flaws or talents, either, so I couldn't have possibly been _chosen_ for something. Though I suppose that hardly matters now.

In _this_ world, I am Inuzuka Arata, second born to the clan head, Inuzuka Hisao of the Inuzuka clan of Konohagakure. My mother, Inuzuka Yuuna, initially wanted to name me Kiba, but decided that it "was too fierce for my cute little face".

Being an infant again after so long was terrifying. Not being able to see, along with barely being able to move my body was torture. To add on, a few weeks into my new life, I began feeling a…something under my skin. Like twenty-something strangers very softly tracing a finger over your entire body. Constantly. When I wasn't being fed or sleeping, the only thing I could focus on was that feeling. Combined with my decreased vision and loss of control over bodily functions, well let's just say I wasn't the most mentally stable of children. I probably drove my new parents up the wall with how much I cried. What I learned later was that the feeling was actually my chakra system developing. Chakra in and of itself was foreign to me, so of course I would notice when it's literally worming itself _through_ me.

On a happier note, by the time I was 6 months old, my vision started getting better and I gained some control over my body again, though the feeling of chakra coils shaping and weaving themselves around my organs didn't really go away.

I also got to know my parents a lot better right around this time since I could, you know, actually see them. I took it upon myself to also start learning the language they were speaking too, which didn't turn out to be all that hard. They were speaking Japanese after all, although slightly different from what I remember. I studied Japanese before in high school for quite some time, so it wasn't too foreign to me. Some words though I've never even heard of before, and some grammar rules I had to relearn entirely. With my increased vision also came better hearing and smell, way better than my old life's ones, which should have been the first indicator towards what and where I was.

My parents are... interesting, to say the least. After the breastfeeding stage, they weren't around very much anymore, frequently vanishing for weeks or months at a time, leaving me taken care of by whoever was in one place long enough to spare a few hours. When they were there, they were big bundles of energy smashing through the monotony of infant life, though I could tell they were very tired, coming back home. When they could make time for me, they would bombard me with all kinds of love and affection. Sometimes, though, when they thought I wasn't looking they would carry this world weary face and stare off into the distance, like they were searching for an answer to a forever unanswered question. With their long absences and weary appearances, I could guess what type of period we were currently in. I silently hoped we would all get through it without losing anyone.

Being the new head's child I was naturally expected to be a ninja, and was thus treated accordingly, which as soon as I found out about was greatly mortified by. I didn't have long for coming to terms with it however, as when I found out I was being hauled to a different place then my usual room.

The Inuzuka have a very strange concept of child rearing. As soon as I was old enough to crawl I was immediately thrown to the dogs. Not literally of course, throwing a child is never a good idea. But still. Early childcare didn't have much parental involvement, preferring to raise them somewhat communally in the kennels alongside the ninken. Supposedly it's to help tuning in with our 'primal selves' or whatever, which is what brings me to my current predicament.

You see, during my stay in the kennels, I noticed that the ninken basically owned the place. The human children, at the bottom of the hierarchy were thus naturally inclined to follow their leads and imitate them. Not knowing any better, they ate and slept and played just like any other dog, but I know better. Almost two decades of knowing better. To say I didn't fit in was an understatement. The caretakers would often send me weird looks every once in a while, and not wanting to attract suspicion, I had to try to imitate the rest. It was awkward and frankly a little condescending. Being a baby again and not being able to do much because of it has been a very humbling experience, but to have to literally grovel in the dirt is a new low. Can you imagine? Humans tend to touch their face a lot, but now I'm basically forced to do that with my foot. My FOOT. over and over and over.

So now I've gone full circle. Still in dog butt and none the wiser. What now?

* * *

So. A Naruto SI. I know, how original. I have a rough outline to where to go with this, but nothing concrete, so I'll just be writing as I go.

Also, doing the research for this I noticed something about Naruto, Shippuden in particular. It don't make no sense. Taking this into account, I'm going to be _conveniently ignoring_ various parts of Shippuden. Including almost the entire war arc. That means Obito's dead, Kaguya doesn't exist, and Naruto and Sasuke aren't reincarnations of demigods. If you don't like that, this ain't the fic for you my friend. Still appreciate you for staying till the end of Ch.1 though. :)


	2. Chapter 2

The second chapter! Even though it's been like a week I still feel like this chapter took way longer to write than it should have.

 **Namikaze Uzumaki Potter** \- I have no idea what I'll be doing for pairings if I'll be doing them at all. Open to suggestions though. :)

* * *

These last few years have been... interesting, to say the least. Along with learning how to be a dog, we were also taught several other things.

The kennel we stayed at was multi purposed to also be a kindergarten. We would attend classes alongside the ninken, learning the basics of language, history and math early on. Naturally with language came speech, which some ninken were capable of and others weren't. They were still able to perfectly understand them, however, which was strange.

The weird thing about the classes we took is how advanced everyone seemed to be. Toddlers here are much quicker at picking up concepts than back home. The two year olds were already moving to first grade reading, and subtraction of double digit numbers. Hell, I know adults that can't do those things.

Thinking about it, that does make a whole lot of sense. Even if they were geniuses you still wouldn't let people like Kakashi serve in your military at _five._

For that very reason, I purposefully held back during classes. Let me tell you, holding back from speaking like a normal person was immeasurably hard when you're being tasked to do discussions every single day. I mostly kept quiet during those times, and only spoke when prompted. I have no doubt that I came off as a weird and maybe even a little creepy compared to the other children. Being part dog now also means that they adopt the general extroverted nature of one. And being the opposite of loud and open with every action I make didn't exactly get me many friends. Or any, period. Well, except for one.

"So you're Arata huh? You don't look like much." She said with a not-quite sneer.

A girl, or a woman rather. Looks to be in her early twenties, at first glance looks just like any other Inuzuka, but exudes a totally different air.

Dominance. Everything about her _screams_ alpha.

"Forgot to how to talk? Speak up boy. I ain't got all day." Impatient too? How nice.

Right now, we were at the entrance of the kennel, which was basically just a giant room with haphazardly placed fold in chairs every few meters or so. It acts as a sort of meeting room for relatives and such to interact with the young pups and children. A lot of times, parents come into this room to check in on their children. Since my parents are off at some outpost somewhere I don't generally get many visitors.

I turned to face her.

"I usually prefer to keep quiet. I tend to creep people out."

She narrowed her eyes. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that with me."

"This might be a little rude, but who are you?" This time definitely a sneer.

"The name's Tsume. Apparently your older sister." My eyebrows shot upward, and I opened and closed my mouth over and over again, trying to find words for this situation.

"Nice fish impression." I shut my mouth. She smiled.

"It was news to me too. Got a letter yesterday when I came back from Ame from our parents finally letting me know of your existence." I had a sudden strong urge to facepalm.

"I hope they know I'm four years old by now?" She huffed, and sat a little laxer in her chair.

"Yeah, they've never been very good with time, or anything else outside of fighting." I scowled, not impressed.

"Great."

She said nothing for a while, just taking a moment to stare at me. I stared back. "You know I thought you'd be a lot different." I looked away.

"You're not the only one."I replied solemnly.

Well, it's not like I dislike you either." Her look turned more considering. "Hey, once you get out of here, come look me up. I'll let you meet Kuromaru." She said, like it was some great honor I got to meet her dog.

Tsume stood up to leave, waving back at me as she began walking away. She made a beeline for the exit, not caring if anyone was in her way. Not like it mattered, since people scrambled aside as soon as she got close.

Not until the day after did it sink in that I had just met my first canon character. And that she was my sister. This just served to hammer down more that yes, I was strictly in the Naruto universe, not some similar looking offshoot. Joy.

On a more disturbing note, the shinobi training started just last month, once our entire age group turned four. It was very basic stuff, basic chakra theory, recognition of basic weapons like kunai, mission rankings, shinobi rankings, etc. Still, we were taught these things with the mindset that yes, we were going to use all this knowledge to kill. And it wasn't that part that bothered me the most, it's that it was so subtle yet so in your face at the same time. For an example, instead of picture books of something like animals you have picture books of common weaponry, or widely used jutsu. From birth, we are not only engineered to become killers, we're also conditioned. And somehow, I'm going to have to survive in this crazy world.

Luckily for me, the war just ended. Abrupt? Yeah. That's basically how it felt for me too. The news of Iwagakure finally surrendering just came in yesterday and everyone was more than overjoyed. The caretakers rushed into the kennel and hugged us all to death, shouting and leaping for joy all the while. They even hugged me. It didn't mean much for me, since my family's still at their respective outposts for the cooldown. Seeing as they're Inuzuka they're probably doing a lot of tracking, searching for the MIA along with verifying the body counts.

It clearly meant a lot to the others though, seeing as how the heavy mood around the adults I didn't even realize was there started lifting. Accordingly, they started treating me better as well. Always a bonus.

Just the calm before the storm. Based on the meager amount of evidence I've been collecting, the war that just ended was only the second one. If I remember correctly, the third came not too long after.

I'll probably be old enough to fight in that one by the time it comes, so I'm going to have to make use of the time I have now to get as strong as possible.

And so here I am, starting the day after the announcement. I sat down with a couple of leaves and started working on the Leaf Concentration Exercise shown in class the other day. I've been consciously aware of my chakra for years now, even if the uncomfortable feeling went away, I can still tell it's there. Manipulating it wasn't all that hard, in the end. I accidentally learned how to do it when I was bored in my crib one day. I couldn't do much with it, but manipulating the flow to different parts of my body had a strange calming effect not dissimilar to meditation.

Point is, I have a small headstart on the rest. Not to brag, but I had the Leaf Concentration Exercise perfected by the end of the day already. After that, I moved onto steadily thicker materials until I could hold a small block of concrete to my feet. I was a little scared to ask for more control exercises, so I had to wait for the others to catch up to be taught more.

Aside from control, we've also started working on our bukijutsu. Mostly just wooden kunai and shuriken, but every bit counts.

Taijutsu naturally being a big part of the Inuzuka style, we started doing conditioning as soon as we could walk. Never being the most active person in my previous life, this was most obviously the hardest part for me. I've seriously considered just rolling over and dying many times. I mean, running laps we had to do them both on two and four feet interchangeably. We hadn't even learned the Four Legs Technique yet so it felt very awkward.

The rest of my time was spent searching for whatever information I could get my hands on. Given that I couldn't leave the kennel and the place's reading material didn't advance beyond 3rd grade level stuff, I didn't get much. I tried to do this all covertly, for fear of being looked at like a spy, but I don't think it went all that well seeing as there's a constant surveillance in the kennels.

That's basically how my life continued until right around five.

"So kids, the new Academy term will be starting next month, so there will be a small assessment next week to see if you'll be joining it or you'll be waiting for next year. That's all. You can go now." The instructor walked off, back to the break room from where he came from.

That's odd. It seems I'm not the only confused by this, as several of the other kids have absolutely no idea what's going on either, sending confused glances to each other. After a while, each of them starts their own version of training, not wanting to be left out of the program this year. Already putting us a in competition huh? Well, I don't really mind.

Turns out I didn't really need the extra training. Although my physical scores were left a little wanting, the rest was more than enough to get me through. In truth, the test was only for those who couldn't keep up the basics and would embarrass the clan if they were sent out prematurely.

So that leads me to now, being led as a group to Academy grounds. Let the School Arc begin I guess. I just hope I can avoid the cliches.

* * *

Am I moving too fast? Or is this fine? Can't tell.


	3. Chapter 3

The group we traveled with was rather big compared to the others I saw walking up. Five loud and rambunctious little children dragged along by a caretaker named Shizuka. Oh. And me.

"Are you excited for today, Arata?" Shizuka asked me, with two kids dangling from her arm and one on her back. Probably trying to eat her hair.

I like Shizuka. She's the only one of the caretakers who doesn't avoid me. Bonus points for not treating me like a dog either. Often when the caretakers want me doing something, they use Shizuka to tell me. At the same time though, she always tries to make me talk for some odd reason, and doesn't get weirded out when I do.

"I guess? I don't really know what to expect." I replied.

"Well, first days at the Academy are always just orientation, so you don't have to worry about it too much." She replied back casually. The kid on her back moved on to balance himself on her head. "If anything, you should try making some friends, Kami knows you need them." She smirked.

 _Friends?_ I'm more than a decade and a half older than every single kid in there. How am I supposed to connect with someone who can barely say the word 'meticulous?'

"Friends are hardly my priority."

She made a sound that sounded much too similar to a scoff. "You're going to need to develop at least some social skills if you're going to be a successful ninja. Friends are a great way to get those social skills." She scolded. "And forming bonds with your comrades is very important, especially with other clans."

Like who? The Hyuuga? To me, that would be equivalent to declaring allegiance to Land of Water. Ergo, a death sentence.

"I don't need those. I have a perfectly good bond with the clan already." I pouted.

"Oh yeah? What's _her_ name?" She pointed to an Inuzuka girl about 5 meters ahead of the rest of the group, trying to catch a bug with her hands.

"Ummm... Eriko?" She smirked. "Mariko?" I tried. It got bigger. "Fumiko." I was getting desperate.

"My point has been made."

I walked ahead, making sure that I was in between Shizuka's group and butterfly girl, so I wouldn't have to talk to either.

The Academy itself looked a little different than during the show. It had a newer feeling to it, and an aura of expectation. Clearly a repainting was just done, along with a restructuring of the training grounds in the back. Everything was nice and clean, but the smells were a different story. The place smelt like wood, obviously. But under that there were many many more smells. Scrolls, ink, sweat, iron scrap. I didn't take many trips out to the village itself too much, so I haven't actually learned the smell of many things outside the kennel. Coming to the academy was like stepping into an entirely new dimension.

People in chuunin vests were already organizing people into classes, lists in their hands, and showing directions.

"OK kids, this is it. Be good. The teachers here are a lot less lax than I am, so you better listen to them!" She waves us off as we joined the rest of the group around the chuunin waiting for their room assignment.

"Inuzuka Arata? Let's see… class 202! Go up the stairs and follow the hallway to the right and just keep going. There's a big sign saying 202, go there." I was thankful that none of the other Inuzuka seemed to be following me to my classroom. It's pretty obvious I don't get along with them very well.

Opening the door to the class and walking in, I was immediately greeted to a faceful of youthful vigor. No, not Gai.

"Out of the way!" A girl with long purple hair up in a ponytail charged straight _over_ me as I ducked.

"Hey wait!" Another kid, this time with short dark-grey hair, ran after her. "Give me back my bokken!"

Yeah no, I wasn't getting myself involved in that. I made an effort to remain as casual and inconspicuous as possible as I walked to a seat in the back. Over the next thirty minutes the class filled from half full to jam-packed. There was barely enough space in the seats. The overall class mood was an interesting mix of nervous anticipation and cheer that really only kids could exude.

 _Oh if it could last._ I thought, as the teacher walked in.

"Good morning. My name is Yamanaka Chizuru, your homeroom teacher. You will refer to me as Chizuru-sensei. From this day forward I will expect a lot from you. So much so that, most likely, I will not see at least half of you by the time the year ends."

She paused, supposedly for dramatic effect. The shock in the atmosphere was palpable.

"In spite of that, the Academy's curriculum is not based on whether you pass or fail. It's based on whether you have the physical and mental fortitude to overcome the pressure that's put on you. I hope you will work with me to make the best of this year. That said, I will now be handing out your syllabus.."

Well, guess she's not a Yamanaka for nothing. Using that declaration in such a stoic manner to grab their attention immediately sets the mood for the class, along with earning her respect by default as a representative of these values. Anyone that questions her way of teaching is then put to blame for complaining simply because they weren't good enough to make the cut.

"The Academy, as a rule will still use your test scores in the class ranking, which will be shown at the front of the school. The textbooks.."

Wow. Impressive. Setting up competition in this way also creates a clear hierarchy, which, in a society of ninja matters. A lot. Those at the bottom will always have that knowledge lorded over them. If you look at how Sasuke and Naruto were treated in the Academy, this also affects your social status and how people treat you. Basically, survival of the fittest, grade-school style. Or I could be overthinking this. Whatever.

"Lastly, I will have to inform you that fighting outside of sparring is strictly forbidden. That is all." She grabbed her bag, pushed up her glasses and walked back out the same way she came in.

The class was mostly silent, still processing what exactly just happened. A few seconds later, another teacher walked in.

"Hello children. My name's Umino Ikkaku, and I'll be your generals teacher. I'm sure you're very curious on what exactly that means. Well, generals is exactly what it sounds like. My job is to cram as much knowledge about language, math, anatomy, and history into your brain as possible.."

It seems he's just going to ignore the student's collective confounding. I don't blame him, I'd do the same. Wait. Hold the phone. Umino? As in Iruka? Well, that explains a lot.

Just like Chizuru-sensei, he handed us a syllabus and left. This cycle would repeat twice over with two more teachers until lunch inevitably came.

Walking onto the playground I was nervous. Very much so. We weren't allowed to stay inside to eat our lunch, so I'm now going to have to find a free spot in a crowded yard to eat at and hope no one tries to interact with me.

I picked the most out of the way spot I could find to sit down and eat my lunch. Pork with rice and vegetables on the side. Not exactly what you'd call lunch, but I'm not complaining. At least it's not a full on meat diet like _some_ people in the clan.

Out of boredom, I started watching the other kids run around the playground, food hastily stuffed down their mouths and already starting up games of tag. Oh look, it's that purple haired girl again. Wasn't she the proctor of the chuunin exams? Anko right? Orochimaru's pupil. Mhhmmm. Nope.

It seems that peacefully eating my lunch wasn't meant to be, as someone eventually came to walk up to me and interrupting my thoughts of cute, small and adorable puppies being viciously mauled by snakes.

"Umm.. can I sit here too?" The kid from before, with the bokken. Seems he got it back too. Good for him. I nod. He sits down next to me, a little bewildered and starts eating his lunch. Rice with some sort of vegetable soup.

We sit and eat in silence for a while. "What's your uuh.. What's your name?" He asked. I raise an eyebrow at him. "Oh I'm sorry! I'm supposed to introduce myself first right?" Not what I was going for, but OK. "My name is Shirakumo Hayama. Nice to meet you!"

Silence.

He looks at the ground. Then back at me. Then the ground. Ugh, fine. "Inuzuka Arata." The look on his face was dazzling.

"Really? You don't look like an Inuzuka." This is going to be a thing here too?

"..I'm aware."

More silence.

"Are you excited for the Academy? I know it's only been like half a day but we could grow so much here! Learn so many different things and.." I just let him keep talking, slowly eating my food all the while. A few minutes later a group walked up, led by the snake charmer herself.

"Hey! Why are you hanging around that weirdo! You should come play ninja with us. We need one more player and Tomoe said you'd be fast so come on my team!"

Hayama, who was thoroughly dismissed by her stopped talking entirely and scooted back to hide behind me. Sigh. I thought I was going to be escaping the cliches. Whatever then.

"I'm not interested." The atmosphere changed, subtly. "And why is that?" She asked, accusing undertone very much present. Maybe honesty will do the trick. "I don't really like you, and I have no real interest in playing ninja. Also, Hayama's not weird. He just talks too much." I heard a squeal from behind me.

The more I spoke the more offended she seemed to get. "What did you say punk?" She grabbed my shirt to hold me up to her face. Ok, so maybe honesty _isn't_ the best way to go with ninjas. Go figure.

"Is there a problem here?" Chizuru-sensei, who just Body-Flickered behind Anko changing the atmosphere from slightly broiled to chilling.

"Well, sensei, I just said I didn't really wanna play ninja and she got like this." The look of both fear and anger she was giving me was priceless.

Chizuru-sensei took Anko to the inside of the building, leaving her posse standing there baffled.

Quietly, Hayama spoke up. "What?" This is far from over. I can tell.

* * *

The rest of the day was more of the same, with two more teachers coming in and out. The last one took us on a tour through the whole school and afterwards we were promptly dismissed.

As I walked out of the building to meet back up with Shizuka I was stopped by Anko. She ran up to me and put her hand heavily on my shoulder. "You. Me. Six. Training Ground 12. _Today._ " She whispered, and then stalked off. Well that was quick. Archnemesis acquired.

Walking up to Shizuka I did something I haven't done since being reborn. I started a conversation. "Shizuka. I got invited for a playdate. Can I go?" She was stunned for a few seconds, then delighted, said. "Of course! Make sure you come back by nine. We're going to be having tonkatsu to celebrate your first day at the Academy, so you can't miss it." I smiled, deceptively mild. "Thanks."

I ran off to go find myself a map because I didn't actually know where Training ground 12 _is_.

Now let's see here. Where should I even go to find a map? A tourist hall? In a hidden village? Didn't think so. You know what, let's just ask around. I walk up to a random ninja taking the boring way through Konoha, walking the streets. Medium height. Short black hair, black eyes. In a world where primary colors for hair is normal, he's nothing special.

"Hey mister! Do you know where I can find Training Ground 12?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "And why would a kid like you need to know that?"

Oh right. "I'm on a scavenger hunt and one of the clues says it's close to there." Smile. Don't forget to smile. You're an innocent and unassuming kid that isn't about to do anything. No sir.

He grunted. "Very well then, the training grounds are found on the eastern outskirts of the village. There should be a signboard around the area you could use."

It was already 5:45, so I hurriedly thanked him and left. I scrambled east, almost at a running pace, but not quite so as to preserve energy for the actual fight. I arrive, and sure enough, there is a giant sign board that tells me of the location. I open the fence to the training ground and walk in.

The place itself is basically a giant field, with a small lake to the left and a collection of trees to the right. Anko herself is already there, casually leaning against a tree. Noticing my presence she walks over to the center of the field and faces me.

"You ready to get your ass beaten!? I don't take crap from nobody! Not even clan kids! Bring it, loser!" She adopted a rudimentary battle stance with knees bent and fists at her sides.

We weren't taught any actual taijutsu yet, so truthfully, I have no idea how to actually fight. What we were taught however, is body enhancement with chakra. I can improvise.

Not really knowing what stance to pick, I adopted Lee's one. One arm behind the back, and one arm in front with knees bent. God this is weird. "Let's go then."

She certainly wasted no time, opening her pouch and launching projectiles at me. I sidestepped them. They were pretty poorly aimed, and not with a lot of speed but..

" _Real kunai?!_ Are you crazy!?" The girl somehow got real honest to God throwing knives in a kids' brawl. She charged with a yell, not bothering to answer.

 _Okay then. Let's try this. LARIAAAATT!_

I charged as well, channeling chakra to my legs and drastically increasing my speed, arm roughly colliding with Anko's neck.

She tumbled backwards, coughing all the while. Wow, that actually worked. Somewhat.

She stood back up. "Is that. *Uuuugh* all you *Gah!* have?!" She threw more projectiles, senbon this time. With my chakra enhanced speed I dodged even more of them and raced around to her back.

"No." I said, as I delivered a roundhouse kick to her side. She fell over again, this time not getting up.

"So what was that about not taking any crap?" She glared at me.

"I'll get you back for this!" She once again reached for her pouch, dropping smoke bombs. In the resulting smoke, I couldn't see her fleeing. I could still hear her open the gate, and her scent getting more distant, but pursuing this isn't a wise idea by any means.

I walked out of the training grounds myself, feeling in a good mood. About beating a five year old. Never mind I feel awful.

"That was a sad excuse for a fight." a male voice, faintly familiar.

"I know." The man comes out of from behind me and I turn around to face him. It's the same man from before. "You were watching? Why?"

"Of course. I knew from the get go you were lying to me, and children usually aren't allowed on the Training Grounds. Even off duty, I am still part of the Konoha Police Force." Shiiiiiiiit. Play it cool, play it cool. You can do this.

"Well, I was.. Invited and it felt rude to refuse."

He snorted. "Your taijutsu was horrendous."

I snorted back at him. "I'm five."

"You certainly don't act five." I crossed my arms.

"Stalking a child through Konoha isn't what I'd call Military Police behavior either." He stayed silent.

"What's your name boy?" I considered lying, then discarded that idea immediately. Lying's what got me here in the first place, and it's not going to get me out. I don't need that lesson twice either thank you very much.

 _Note to self. Work on your deception skills._

"Inuzuka Arata. Yours?"

He smiled a toothless smile. "Uchiha Fugaku. I hope I don't see you again anytime soon." I smiled back the same way.

"Me neither sir." He body-flickered out. I let out a sigh.

Coming back to the kennel I was greeted by a worried Shizuka. "What happened? It's barely 7?"

I walked in and took off my shoes. "Nothing. They weren't very friendly, so I left." She frowned. Hey, lying to Shizuka doesn't count. She never catches on anyways.

Suddenly her frown turned into a smile. "Well lucky for you, Chiyoko just had a new batch of litters, so we'll be doing your first compatibility tests soon!"

The compatibility test is exactly what it sounds like. You'll be going through a short trial with each and every new dog to see if you'll end up partners or not. It's actually more ritualistic in nature, but the the Inuzuka were never one for formal things. It involves making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact and seeing if your chakra can connect with each other. If you form a bond, you're compatible and that pup will be your partner in the future. If not, you gotta wait for the next batch. At least, that's what I scraped together from the fragments of info people told me from the experience.

Honestly, I don't know what to expect, but I just hope he won't be as loud as the rest. "Great."

* * *

I know pacing's really awkward right now, I'm working on it.


	4. Chapter 4

Yeeeeah new chapter! Waaaaaay late. I have no excuses. This chapter wrecked me.

P.S. If you you have criticisms, complaints, or simply want to see something happen in this story, I'd greatly appreciate you leaving a review. I'll gladly take it into consideration.

* * *

"Arata? Oh. This way, come in!" The head veterinarian, a middle aged women named Ume, urged me inside.

We're currently in a fairly big nursery on the outskirts of the compound, getting me sorted for my compatibility test. Along with all the usual nursery stuff it also has many other things. It definitely has a more laboratory feel with all the seals lying around doing.. something. _What_ isn't exactly clear, though I can tell there's chakra running through the lines connecting them.

"Take a seat, Arata, I'll just be grabbing some forms here and there." She scrambled around for papers on her desk. Next to it, there was a large cradle with no one in it. "How's the Academy going?"

It's been about three days since my bout with Anko, and my school life hasn't exactly gotten much better. We're still at orientation, going around the school, making sure we know where everything is, along with every single rule they managed to invent. There are lots. From the attitude of a few of the senior students though, half of them are hardly reinforced. That is, unless you have Chizuru-sensei. She's turned out to be the single most hated teacher ever, to the point where even the teachers avoid her. Why? Well, on top of very strictly reinforcing the rules, she also has a habit of verbally tearing someone down psychologically on the smallest of things. It often gets very personal. She's already made two kids cry, and we haven't even actually started class yet. On top of that, Anko didn't take very kindly to being beaten in our fight and has taken to glaring at me in class and trying to get her group try to harass me at every point. They seem reluctant, and there haven't been any attempts yet, but it's still disconcerting having to constantly look out for myself in case something happens. So yeah, school hasn't exactly been great.

"..Great." She sat down in the chair in front of me with a clipboard in her hand.

"Very convincing." She deadpanned. "Now, I'm just going to ask you a couple of yes or no questions, ok? Do try your best to try to answer them."

She asked me seemingly random questions, like what's your favorite food, interlaced with more serious questions, like 'how would you describe your chakra,' (chocolate and a river delta of caterpillars) etc. I suppose the lighter questions are there to mask the actual questioning line, but what that line is? No idea.

"Good, good. Now for a physical. Stand up for me please."

We usually get physicals every other month or so as part of the whole kennel raising program so this isn't really needed, checking the usual stuff like blood pressure, balance, and chakra levels.

"Good, good. Well, I think it's about time to meet the puppies! Are you excited?" I stared at her. "Of course you are. Follow me."

She led me down a corridor deeper into the building. Now that I think about it, there's an awful lot of random hallways connecting everything here. Probably for security, but some of them lead absolutely nowhere. At the very end of the building, we climbed down some stairs to come into a door heavily locked with seals. Ume spoke up.

"Hold on. This won't take long." She said as she started a series of hand seals. The seals on the door started glowing and the door opened up all dramatic like. A blinding amount of light encompassed the narrow and dark corridor, smothering it entirely. When the light passed what appeared was a completely white room with dashes of orange and brown, adorned with a great many dog tools. In the corner there was a whelping box, where a great many tiny little white fur-balls surrounded a much bigger white fur-ball.

Ume ushered me inside with an expectant look. The mother, Chiyoko if I remember correctly, glared at me and started growling. Hesitating, I stopped and looked to Ume.

"Don't worry. Just let her smell you."

Slowly, _slowly,_ I approached Chiyoko and stuck out my hand. She started sniffing me, eyes still focused upon mine. Eventually, after more awkward staring, she seemed to give me a pass and gestured over to her pups. The puppies themselves, who were asleep up until now, woke and looked at me curiously. They all looked like more of a cross between a shiba inu and a coywolf than a straight up dog.

"Try picking one up." I did so, carefully taking the leftmost of the litter into my grasp. "Now try to form a connection." I looked at her dubiously. She gave me another expectant look.

 _Very helpful. Now how..?_

I looked in its eyes, chocolate brown ones reflecting my face back to me. Subtly, very subtly I could feel my chakra reaching outward to his. A few seconds later, the connection suddenly broke off and he looked away, expressing a clear desire to be put back down again.

Putting him down again, Ume reassured me. "Don't worry, that's going to happen a lot. You'll know which is the right one when you sense it."

I picked up another one, an eccentric female in the middle who looked very excited to try. Looking into her eyes, a darker brown this time, I tried to form the connection again. After about thirty seconds I gave up and put her back down again. The look on her face was heartbreaking.

I tried this process with two more dogs, and no dice. The connection actually started with them, but still ended up breaking seconds later. Ume didn't look worried, so this must be a regular occurrence. It's your partner for life after all, so maybe that's warranted. The looks Chiyoko was sending me though, told another story.

After trying out the fifth one I noticed there was a puppy in the back who had already gone back to sleep. Slightly annoyed at the action, I picked it up perhaps a little more roughly than I was supposed to. Chiyoko growled, but Ume waved her off. That is, until she saw who I was holding.

"M-Maybe it's a good idea to try another one? Surely you'd like someone else, right?" She said nervously. I raised an eyebrow. Losing composure generally wasn't a thing that happened to Ume.

Ume's trepidation didn't exactly do wonders for my hopes of this one succeeding, but I tried anyway. I looked into the puppies eyes, a male, with… _red_ eyes. OK then. It stared lazily back at me, then opened its eyes alarmingly wide, and instantly the connection I had been trying to form reached him. Where the previous connections were more like a string attached to both sides, this felt more like really thick rope, or steel bars or something. Strong, very very strong.

Looking into its eyes, I could see every fiber of its being, and I knew that it could see mine. Our red strings started intertwining and fastening to each other. Tightly. The sensation was unreal, being warped into someone else's psyche. Especially a dog's. I was surprised at the extent of it, considering he probably isn't older than 8 weeks. It was like Dormammu's Dark Dimension, but light instead and every flare of color represents something in his psyche. Abruptly, I was taken out, and thrown back in reality.

He looked the way I was feeling, incredibly shaken by what just occurred. Next to us, Ume looked like she was caught mid sentence, gaping at us with an expression like an ocelot jumped her.

"Well, I think we've.. Found a match." She said, recovering from.. Whatever the heck she saw.

"So what now?" I looked back at the dog. He looked back at me and lazily put his head on the hand that was holding him, falling asleep. OK then. "Well, we're going to keep him here for a few more days and.. Since you're a son of the clan head you'll have to wait for Hisao-sama to come and name him. He'll decide what you'll be doing after that."

"Does that mean they're coming back soon?" Ume, now finally out of her stupor, furrowed her brow. "You mean you didn't know? Do they tell you anything at all? I swear, these caretakers.. Anyway, yes they're coming back in a few days. We've got word by hawk that their outpost has been cleared and most of the ninja there will be sent back home. Which, naturally, includes your parents."

I smiled.

* * *

So yeah, I know it's kinda short this time, but this chapter was really blocking my thought process so I just had to get it out there. Also, like four hours of studying different dog breeds and whelping and the controversiality around coywolves and I didn't even use any of it. So there.

Also, I've decided I'm going to be taking a slightly different route from what was originally intended. It's going to be a little different than most fanfictions on here, in avenues like character interaction and general world building. It's also going to be a lot darker, and I'm going to try to explore more negative aspects of characters in this story, and basically no one is going be exempt from this. I'm hoping to do a little more with this story than just telling one. Here's to hoping it won't suck. It probably will though. Cheers to a sooner release for next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

"Tomoe! Masato! Arata! Over here!" Nobuyuki, the disgustingly cheerful head caretaker called out to us.

Sitting over at a distance I watched the main group going through their stretch routine as two heads popped up at the mention of their names. They made eye contact, then walked over to where Nobuyuki was seated on the edge of the field. Over to his right, Shizuka was making faces at me.

'Do I really have to go?'

'Yes, yes you do.'

'But..'

'Go. Just trust me.'

'..Go!'

'Fine!'

With one last scowl in her direction, I solemnly walked over to join the rest. Honestly sometimes I wish she'd just communicate more in words.

"Hey kids! I just got word that you all recently completed your compatibility tests! Are you excited?" His face was consumed by the giant array of teeth he displayed from his mouth which seemed to stretch _beyond_ his face.

The other two seemed a lot less disturbed with the sight than I was. "Yeah!" "I'm gonna become the strongest ever and then I'll become Hokage and then I'll get.." Nobuyuki looked down at them, smile not wavering in the least. "Sure you will."

"Well! Now that you've received your partners, you'll finally be starting on our clan techniques so you'll be training apart from the rest." They burst into even louder cheers, to the delight of Nobuyuki. His canines started looking more and more vampiric. He glanced at me, and the smile lessened a bit, but came back full force at his next words. "Because of that, you're also going to be getting individual training from now on!" He gestured to three caretakers behind him, eagerly waiting for the charade to be over. One of which, I was very glad to note was Shizuka.

I tuned out the rest of his *ahem* _disquisition_ and instead turned my thoughts to a much more relevant and important matter. Like: 'Do fish see water? If they don't, can they see _air_? This will need serious investigation. Sadly, the internet isn't a thing here. It's probably antithesis to a ninja to have an almost unlimited amount of information able to be accessed by pretty much anyone. But still!'

Eventually the talk concluded and I was brought back into reality when everyone split up and Shizuka gestured for me. We moved to a corner of the field and Shizuka addressed me. "So how much of that did you get?"

"We're going to be working on the clan techniques with a personal instructor."

She stared at me hopefully. "And?"

Silence.

She sighed. "Fine. Let's begin."

"The technique I am about to teach you is dangerous and more difficult than anything you've done so far. You will not even _think_ of attempting it without my direct supervision, because if it goes wrong, you might not be able to go back. There have been cases.. Anyway, the technique is called The Ninja Art of Beast Imitation, or more simply, the Four Legs technique. You've probably heard of it before."

I nodded. I haven't seen Shizuka this serious before. Not even during the war.

"The jutsu requires a balance of sorts. As you know, the Inuzuka believe in two different sides of the mind. The feral and the civilized. The feral is mostly associated with instinct and primal urges. Behavior is orchestrated solely by the need to survive. The civilized is characterized mostly by rational and purposeful thinking. As humans we in society constantly war against our feral sides, but with this technique, you're going to do the exact opposite and give yourself up to it. Well. Not entirely. But just enough room for the changes to be able to be made. The balance is what matters. Once you get it right, and pump massive amounts of chakra through your body, you'll start transforming. Your canines will turn to fangs and your fingers and toenails grow to claws."

Slightly unexpectedly, at the last bit her face took on a slightly feral sneer. It might indicate that use of the technique might affect the mind, seeing as you're messing with your balances and all. I just hope I won't get turned on by the smell of blood when I'm older.

"Along with the physical changes, there also comes a massive boost in speed, strength and reflexes. That can get overwhelming at first, so be careful with that."

So like Spider-man? But wolfy? Alright then.

"Let's start with the basics. Calling onto your feral side. This shouldn't be too hard. Once you've accessed it once it comes a lot easier so you won't have to go through this process every time. Sit."

I nodded.

"Now, I want you to start meditation, but instead of clearing your mind or focusing on your chakra, I want you to delve into your mind. Seek out the parts you actively restrain, and loosen some of its chains."

I sits.

I sits longer.

Nothing.

I open an eye. "Is it _supposed_ to take this long?"

She frowned. "It's not about how long you do it, it's the effort you put in. Try harder."

Closing my eyes, I try again.

Still nothing.

Out in the distance I hear other people shouting and celebrating. Seems like they got it then.

Still nothing.

It must have been a good hour by now.

"Lets.. let's take a break for now, OK?"

I don't know which of us sighed louder.

* * *

"Pencils down! Pencils down! Good. Pass your test to the aisles.."

Loud sighs and the shifting of paper reverberated through the classroom. For the past few days, we've been taking test after test, some practical, others written or theory. Having suspicions of what it was for, I avoided taking it _too_ seriously.

After being dismissed for lunch, I sat back down at my usual spot, followed by a talking bokken with legs.

"How do you think you did? Cause some questions tripped me over pretty badly, like question 24 and I had no idea what to do for 43 or 17 and those all had nothing to do with each other so I might have.."

I tuned him out. I've been doing that a lot recently. Him sitting here with me, not actually talking more than ranting at me is now established as routine. To my great enjoyment, naturally.

"I swear those kunai were weighted wrong, then again that might have been my balance but then..Oh."

He usually doesn't stop talking until just before the bell when he remembers his food again. I snapped back to reality, luckily gravity stayed with me. It was Tomoe.

"What are you still doing here?" She asked. Her wild lion's mane she calls hair almost seemed to point to me like senbon. It seems she left her group behind, going by the looks they're sending me. That's either foolish or a bold statement of intent. Or both. Probably both.

"Sitting. Eating. You?" She sneered.

"I mean still in the Academy! You don't belong here."

"According to..?"

"To _everyone_! You're supposed to be an Inuzuka! But all I see you do is sit around! And I've heard them talking. The rest don't think you belong either."

I've been expecting this for a while, but to hear it from her still hurt.

"And who are 'the rest' supposed to be?"

She lifted her chin and sneered down at me, smug written all over her face.

"The caretakers. Duh. None of them _really_ want you. They just put up with you because they have to."

Incensed, I abruptly stood up, knocking over the remainder of my food and looked her right in the eye. Uncomfortably close to her face, she faltered slightly, but remained resolute in her sneer.

"And what would you know?" I whispered.

"Enough _to_ know." She whispered back, equally viciously.

"Know _What?_ "

Her voice so low I had to use my Inuzuka senses to hear her. "That the reason your parents aren't back yet is because they don't want to deal with _you_."

Irate, I growled. My fingers coming closer and closer to her throat.

"Is there a problem here?" Suddenly, Chizuru-sensei was right next to us, her glasses obscuring her eyes. Somehow that made her more terrifying.

Tomoe backed off quickly, her gaze following both me and Chizuru-sensei. She sneered once more, and stalked off. Chizuru-sensei faced me. She spoke slowly.

"This is the second time I have absolved your discrepancies. I expect for it not to happen again." Anger rising in me again, I opened up my mouth to respond. As if sensing this, she Body-Flickered back to wherever she came from before any words came out.

Exasperated, I ignored Hayama and my lunch and walked back to the classroom. Trying very hard to keep from stomping.

* * *

"..And then she just stalked off! Can you believe that?!"

Back at the compound for dinner, Shizuka and I were sitting next to each other in a corner of the field. My food was abandoned. She gave me a contemplating expression.

"Come with me." She put her food to the side and stood up. Walking off without looking to see if I followed. I did. She took me back inside, through a long number of corridors. We have way too many of these, it's obscene. Eventually we came up to a complex with doors in every hallway, similar to a hotel. Though with a much less friendly atmosphere, giving off more of a Spartan feeling. I mean, fully grey hallways. Guys!

Briskly walking up to one of the doors, she put her hand to it and a seal on the door activated. It lit up for a second, then opened.

The room inside looked more like a dorm room, and thankfully not grey, but more of a faded white. Yes that's a thing. Clothes and scrolls haphazardly thrown around, and an incredibly disorganized bed next to a single chair. She pushed away the chair and gestured for me to sit on the floor.

"Try the meditation again. Don't think about anything but that feeling when she challenged you. But instead of repressing it, let it go. Try it."

Incredulous, I just look at her for a while before sitting down to meditate. Closing my eyes it was easy for me to call back the memory and it was like it happened all over again. I put my hands to the Tiger Seal.

I just don't get it! I don't care if she's barely out of the womb! Saying such a thing to _anyone_ is a horrible thing to do no matter what their status is! I just don't understand how- Wait. Stop. I can't- No. Why should I stop? She tried to undermine me. She's deliberately trying to play power games with me right now. It doesn't matter if she learned how to count just a year ago. If she's trying to play the adult, she'll get burned as one.

Deep inside my chakra system, I felt something snap. Like chains hacked apart with an especially sharp axe. Like the decisive clap of fireworks at the end of a show. Like it unleashed something. It surged, sharp and agitated, ripping through my system.

"Ok! Ok. That's good. Now, focus on that feeling and spread it. All throughout your body. Remember! Balance!"

Complying, I forced the chakra to my will and tried spreading it. I could feel it changing me, could feel my nails lengthening, my eyes and nose sharpening, my thoughts speeding up with a nearly brutal amount of adrenaline rushing through me. Once it settled, the feeling was almost natural. A constant state of battle readiness. At the same time though, I could feel it draining my chakra. And since I'm five, I probably can't sustain this for more than a minute.

"You can open your eyes now." The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Shizuka's face beaming at me. I slowly cancelled the jutsu, watching my claws turn back into fingernails. There's something mesmerizing about being able to see the changes you made to yourself.

"Congratulations. You've successively learned the Four Legs Technique." Achievement get. Just kidding. I smiled at her.

"Now, are you gonna tell me what's really wrong?" My breath caught. Since when was Shizuka perceptive?

"I.. it's fairly obvious I don't exactly follow the crowd here. And so far the only reason why they haven't hazed me or anything is because I'm the son of the head." She nodded her head, and sat a little closer to my side.

"And it's not like I really care about being one, but to know that the only thing keeping me from being thrown out is my parents love for me... Well, it's hard to see that when they're not actually there. And I can't really blame them for it. Realistically I know I shouldn't think like that, but that doesn't really stop me from worrying. I just feel like I'm in a constant state of limbo. Having difficulty with the Four Legs Technique didn't help much with that." By the time I finished speaking, I was sitting in Shizuka's lap, my back to her and looking down. She took a little time to pick her words.

"You know, your parents send me mail by hawk a lot. Every week, actually. Every single time, they ask about you. How is his education going? Is he sleeping and eating well? Is he liking the Academy? Basic questions. But they ask for very detailed responses. It's obvious they care, even if they don't often show it."

A hopeful twinge surged up in me, but was then quickly and brutally suppressed by doubt. "Then why don't they send me anything?"

She tilted her head, her long hair, which she kept in a ponytail, swept around to gently hit my face. "People are complicated. Your parents especially so. Often times people forget that you're only five, because you act so much more than that. They're worried about how you would respond and more than anything, they're afraid of rejection. Out there in the blood and the fire and the murder there are only very few things you think about. Yourself, what you're fighting, who you're fighting with, and why you're fighting. I think, that their reason as to why is to live long enough to see the next generation grow up. Which, in this case, means you. War is very good at seeding negative emotions in you. Fear being chief among them. They're scared, sweetie. Scared that whatever's holding them up over there will collapse."

I couldn't think of anything to respond to that. So I just stayed quiet and mulled it over, burying myself deeper into Shizuka. "I still don't understand."

"Soon, you will." She said solemnly.

* * *

I know, it's been forever. I'm sorry. I've been very busy recently with exams and graduation and drama and.. blegh. Also, a new HP story will probably be uploaded sooner or later, since I've been into that lately. Don't really expect it to go anywhere, it's mostly just to get the ideas out of my head so I could focus on this story. That's it. Have a good day!


	6. Chapter 6

You didn't think this was all going to be in one perspective did you?

* * *

 **Shizuka P.O.V.**

I wonder what they're trying to convey, staring at each other like that. I've been alternating doing paperwork and watching them for about half an hour now and they haven't moved an inch. Should I be worried? Call someone maybe? Oh. He smiled. How nice. He doesn't do that very often, which is something I've been trying to fix for a while now. Five years, actually. Even as a baby he was stoic, used to freak Yuuna-sama out a lot, worrying if she did something wrong.

Most of the caretakers avoid him after they caught him flipping the bird to one of the other kids when he was about a year old. Considering the kid just pushed him off a log and the expression on his face, it was far from an accident. He shows a badly hidden superior intellect compared to the rest of the children, but he seems average in everything else, so he's not exactly the new Kakashi or anything. That, if anything, is what really started the exclusion more than anything else. Weird, but not in a beneficial way, so useless. To them, anyway.

A genius is what the Inuzuka have been dearly craving for, especially recently. Within the talent-infested Leaf, we've been falling behind a bit in terms of individual strength among our clan. Most of our Jounin are in recon or tracking, and less and less in ambush squads lately, leading to decreased stature among the rest of the clans. The elders aren't exactly happy with the arrangement, so they've been changing up the curriculum in the kennels, making it more militaristic. Funnily enough, that's why I, a retired field ninja, am here in the first place taking care of small children. Usually a caretaker is a lifetime job assigned by the Head after you've been in an internal job for a while, which means most caretakers come from the veterinarian division or the farmers sector. Since most people in those fields came straight from the Academy, they have little to no actual combat experience. The answer? Introduce actual ninja to the system. Which means me.

I and a few others come from the front line of the Second War, the majority too injured to keep up any more. Me? I just got tired. Tired of the animosity, anger, fear, hate, doubt, death. When I heard there was a vacancy, and that I'd be excused, I went immediately. My team already died a year before that, and with my partners' blood at my feet, I considered it a done deal already. I felt a little out of depth, coming here and going through the training and all. Then to my surprise, there was someone out here who was just as uncomfortable, but it wasn't a caretaker. It was one of the kids. Since I saw him curled up on his own at the very edge of the field and away from the others, I knew I had to go to him. He already seemed capable of coherent, if clumsy speech and was a little rude to me at the beginning but we got along swimmingly after that. The other caretakers, seeing me talking to him immediately decided that he was going to be my responsibility and so everything related to him individually was then turned to me, the newbie. Had a field job with that at first, and then having to deal with his parents, which are the freaking heads, no less. Well I-

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Arata and his ninken. His ninken, by tradition named Shiromaru, is sitting in his lap, staring at him. Arata, who I've never seen so focused on anything before, seems to have blocked out the whole world and has entirely concentrated himself on meeting the stare. It'd be funny, if they hadn't been doing it for so long. I'm starting to get worried.

"Hey, Arata? What are you doing?" His gaze snapped over to me, wide eyed shock communicating that he didn't realize I was there. He must have really lost himself then, considering we're in my room.

"Not much. That's the problem." I gesture to him with the universal motion for 'go on.'

"We're trying to do telepathy, but it's not going all that well. So far, I'm only really getting fragments." I stopped dead. Telepathy? Already? At their ages?!

"You do know that's an advanced skill? Not many can do more than sending out base emotions." This speaks volumes about the kind of partner he has as well. Able to form coherent enough thoughts for telepathy when it's barely two months old.

He frowns at that. "Huh. Makes sense, I guess." He turned to his partner. "Did you know that?" Shiromaru just does the equivalent of a shrug.

At that moment I hear a knock at the door, loud and impatient. I stood up and opened the door, finding an impatient looking chuunin to match. He was giving Arata weird looks.

"They're here. At the entrance." I nodded at him, and he Body-Flickered out. Bitch.

I looked back at Arata, finding a hint of trepidation in his eyes. "Just go. You can figure out the rest." He grimaced, but went anyway.

Walking side to side through the corridors we were quiet, Arata's partner balanced on top of his head. This is the first time Arata's been nervous about people, and the expression on his face is a bad example of trying to hide those emotions. I almost wanted to laugh.

Once we came close to the entrance hall of the compound we could hear familiar sounding voices along with laughter. They were here alright. Arata almost stopped, but went on anyway, slower now. I rolled my eyes at him.

Opening the large double doors leading to the entrance field we slowly walked in and all conversation dropped. They were sitting at a small terrace at the side, talking to Hisao-sama's younger sister, Rika-sama, who had been doing the Head's duties while he was out. Their ninken were lying at their feet.

They just stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time. That was until, on some unspoken signal, both parents raced out of their seat and tackle-hugged Arata to the ground. Shiromaru let out a loud whimper and ran to my side, hiding behind my legs.

"Whendidyougrowsobig!OhitmusthavebeensohardandIwasn'thereforyouandIcan't"

"I'msogladyou'reokayandthatIcanhugyoulikethisandIjustwishIcouldhavebeenhereso-"

Arata was stunned. Trying to reboot, he eventually let relief settle in. His eyes softened, and they fell to the mess that was his parents. Dealing with the two of them is a work and a half when they get like this. I hope he's ready for it.

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

"Let me see you do a Hunter's Kick!" I got into a ready stance, sharply gazed at the training dummy in front of me, and pushed chakra into my legs. My body leaped about a meter and a half into the sky and I twisted my body so my legs struck where my head was, resulting in two hard kicks to the training dummy's head.

If you hadn't guessed, a Hunter's Kick is basically a more practical version of a Butterfly Kick. I landed on my feet a little awkwardly to sarcastic applause from Shizuka, who was sitting in a lounge chair in the back. I bowed, to add to the act.

My dad looked at me appraisingly, a small glint in his eye. A few dozen yards away mom and Tsume were sparring. Well, when I say that I mean they were launching deadly techniques at each other without actually killing each other. Fun.

"Good job. But don't forget that it's not enough to twist for the kick. You have to follow through with your legs. Try it again."

I got back into a ready stance. My hands in claws placed next to each other about a foot from my chest. My legs bent, left foot in front of the right, and back bent about 30 degrees.

It's been a few weeks since my parents came back and I'm not ashamed to say they've been the best few weeks of my new life. It's nice to have adults besides Shizuka around who don't try their hardest to ignore you. Not only that they've been actively engaged in my life now, taking me out to places inside Konoha and personally training me.

Like now. They've been teaching the basic Inuzuka taijutsu creatively called the Inuzuka style. It's actually kind of fun. The style relies on quick hit and run type tactics throwing everything into power and speed and almost completely ignoring defense. In summary, lots of leaping and clawing. Well, the basics anyway. It branches out into different sub styles, like the Dingo style or the many Wolf styles. Right now I'm working on the Coyote style, which involves the legs a lot more than most of the other styles. It's a bit similar to the way Black Panther fights in Civil War. So yeah, it's pretty cool and with their fairly lax instruction I've been having a blast learning it.

Trying the move again I put chakra back into my legs and jumped, then twisted. This time making sure I actively kicked the dummy. I did, but ended up falling in an undignified heap on the ground. Great. I could hear Shizuka snickering in the background. I'll get her back for it eventually.

My dad sweatdropped, (actually sweatdropped, I could physically see the little droplet going down his face!) and helped me up. "Make sure you follow all the way through. Like most moves in the Inuzuka style you have to have no hesitation to make it work." He said, a small smile on his face.

"Alright. Let me try again." I moved to stand up. Getting ready for another shot, a face full of mom crashing into me. They've been doing this a lot. About five times a day, minimum. Maybe it's a thing of theirs or an Inuzuka thing I don't know. I'm starting to get bruises. "So does Tsume-nee's ass needs some salve now or is she good?" I asked.

She chuckled. "No, it was a draw actually. She's catching up nicely." I made a surprised sound. Both of my parents have been Jounin for a long time after all, and Tsume's just been promoted to Jounin last month.

Tsume walked up. "Never mind that, squirt. How's your training going?" She countered.

"Meh. Dad's been teaching me the Coyote style." I could feel the temperature drop by several degrees. There was a meaningful pause.

Tsume faced dad, harsh scowl on her face. "You've been _what_?"

Dad adopted a serious face, one I only saw him use at the monthly leaders meeting he took me to once. One who could only be described by one word. Alpha. Unbending and fierce. Tsume's got a long way to go. He spoke, voice exuding gravitas. "I have been teaching him what aligns to his talents, body structure, and personality. In alignment with what we have always done in the Clan, and will continue to do."

Tsume backed off a little and sent a worried glance to me. "And the associations.."

Dad eased up a little. "It doesn't matter. If anything this'll be good for the Clan."

Tsume sighed, then glared at dad again. "Prove it then."

Dad glared right back again. "Shizuka!" Shizuka, who had been silently watching the whole ordeal, jumped up suddenly. "Yes, sir?"

"I want you to spar with Arata." He turned to address me. "To make it a bit more balanced, you're going to be using the Four Legs Technique while using the Coyote style. Now go."

Exchanging looks with Shizuka I detached myself from mom and went over to the field where mom and Tsume were "sparring" earlier. Wisely not mentioning that I've only been learning the Coyote style for two weeks now, we squared up.

After bearing the Seal Of Confrontation Shizuka assumed a peculiar stance. Legs straight with about twenty centimeters of space between them. Claws facing away from each other and arms spread wide to the north and south. A bit like the starting position for the Passing Fang. The Dhole style then. Notable for its use of acrobatics and wide turning motions.

I brought my hands together in The Tiger Seal and silently activated the Four Legs Technique. As I felt the initial high wear off I nodded at Shizuka to start. And that she did.

She raced forward so fast I barely saw her legs move. The Body-Flicker. Real fights are a lot different than what they're portrayed as in the Naruto show. There's a lot less talking and time to think. Just time to do. That means strategizing needs to be done on the fly and in seconds.

Some rules I've been taught.

Never let your guard down at whatever point in the battle until you're absolutely sure all threats have been eliminated .

Think three moves ahead. No ninja in their right mind (not even Naruto) has their opening move be anything but a distraction or misdirection to set up for something since the beginning of the fight is usually a state in which you test the waters.

Get a feel for your opponent's potential weaknesses while making sure you're not locked into just one attacking pattern.

These and other rules you have to keep in mind and train into you until they become intrinsic and everything you do is a combination of instinct, habit, and strategy. Sort of like an autopilot but not really. The best example I could give would be kunai deflection. You have to train until you don't even think about it anymore and you deflect them on instinct because if you don't you'll suddenly find yourself to be a very wet pin cushion.

Naturally I'm nowhere near that point so when Shizuka practically flew to my position I blanked out for a second. Right up until I had the presence of mind to dodge the spinning kick that came for my face. She's not pulling punches. Or kicks in this case.

I dodged by turning to the left just so and sent a claw to her face, which she dodged by bending backwards into a handstand. The handstand left her legs in the air, close to my face. Wanting absolutely nothing to do with that, I jumped back in a hasty retreat.

Shizuka, now back on her feet, raced towards me again, this time in a turning motion with her left claw coming down diagonally across my face, which I blocked with my right claw. Shizuka is taller and stronger than me, so even disregarding the Four Legs Technique she put me off balance, and the block made my body turn towards the right. Seeing the perfect opportunity I raised my left leg and kicked, targeting her face again. She wasn't having it though, as she turned into my block she changed her center of gravity so it barely clipped her shoulder instead.

Because of Shizuka's height I had to come up into the air for the kick and that made me vulnerable. A fact that Shizuka had no problem capitalizing on, sending a Bicycle Kick to my behind I flew and stumbled for a landing where Shizuka started the fight.

Alright. New plan. The Coyote style relies on me being the one on the offensive. So let's start there. I pushed more chakra through my body, involuntarily letting out a snarl, and leaped for Shizuka. This time I opted for a Tornado Kick, which she turned away from, not accounting for a stray claw coming at her chest. It didn't hit all that well, only getting her clothes, which shredded in the classical scratch pattern. She backed away.

Deciding 'fuck it. Why not?' in my head, I tried a Hunter's Kick once my feet came back on the ground. She dodged that as well. Turning back to her I leapt and made my claws come down in a crossing motion. She blocked it with her own claws and knee'd my chin to knock me away and back again. Ow.

"Alright that's enough!" My dad called out.

I let the Four Legs Technique simmer out. "Woooooooooooooooooooo. Okay I was not ready for that." The massive drain that hit my body afterwards felt like my entire body just decided to be sucked, bent, and and expanded all at the same time. I plopped down on my butt. I probably won't be able to move for the rest of the day. Maybe I shouldn't have increased the chakra output midway through.

Shizuka walked up to me, and aside from her ripped clothes, looked just like she did when she was relaxing on her lounge chair. I glared weakly at her as we made the Seal of Reconciliation. Since I couldn't stand up she lifted me up and carried me instead. Like a toddler.

"You know I'm in the Academy now, right?" She gave me one of her smug smiles. I sighed, giving it up as a lost cause. "You were playing games with me. You could have taken me out at least thrice through the entire spar." Her smile widened. I refrained from the choice words I wanted to say. They likely wouldn't translate over well anyway.

As we made our way back to the rest of my family Tsume looked a little annoyed, and a similarly smug smile to Shizuka's was on my dad's face. Mom looked.. Absent. She was staring at us, but not wholly there.

Dad faced Tsume. "And..?" She made a derisive snort.

"All right, fine. But at least tell him." Dad looked around at the training field. This is one of the smaller ones in the compound and it doesn't have much in the way of equipment either so it isn't used very often. Anyone that was probably there left already, so I don't know why he's bothering to look around now.

"Not here." He walked over to the gates of the training field and gestured for us to follow. I don't really think about it all that often, since I only see maybe three parts of it, but the Inuzuka compound is huge. The only parts I really only see is the kennels, Shizuka's place, and the entrance. I've been to other places a few times like the clinic for Shiromaru, but there's a hell of a lot more in this place than I thought.

We made our way over to what I think is the center of the compound, looking at a rather large traditional Japanese-styled home. Very different from the kennels and the apartments on the outskirts. Is this the so called upstate living? Maybe it's a hierarchy thing. Meh, they'll teach me later.

Walking in, (after dealing with the security seals) we found Shiromaru and my mom's partner, a kind brown haired jackal looking dog named Hanako lounging around together. Okay. Officially confused now. Once they saw us coming in and taking our sandals off Hanako came over to greet us. Shiromaru just yawned in our direction.

"Where are we?" I looked over to my parents for answers. They looked a little sad at my question.

"We're at the Head's home. Our home." Mom said. Oh.

"It's nice." Tsume laughed.

"You've barely seen it yet." I was too tired to deign her with a response so I just stuck my tongue out at her, to which she grinned ferally. What? I'm five! Screw you!

Dad gestured for our little procession to walk further in, since we were kinda just standing around. The rest of the house was just like I thought. Japanese traditional, but with a little more of an unexpected red accent. We don't really have an official color, but maybe it's supposed to represent our red tattoos. Who knows. Once we were nicely seated in the living room with some tea, me in Shizuka's lap for support, mom got started.

"About forty or so years ago, around the creation of the village there was a man named Tadao. An aloof S-ranked Inuzuka notable for his mastery of the Coyote style and his equally strong red eyed partner." Sounds horribly familiar. I gave them a non-amused glance. They of course ignored it.

"Now this man was sent on a missive to a newly formed Hidden Cloud for treaty negotiations. The village was aware of his strength, so they sent him and his ninken out alone thinking it would seem less aggressive. One thing led to another and negotiations broke down. A fight broke out which involved many Hidden Cloud nin. Outnumbered, they tried to escape, but couldn't. The red eyed ninken died in the fighting to give Tadao time to escape.

Tadao came back, broken and angry. He blamed his partner's death on the village, telling them that only sending them out was foolish and that they should have expected an attack. The village turned a deaf ear on him. For what could they do but acknowledge their mistake and move on? But Tadao wanted more, and the dismissal from the village angered him. He stopped receiving missions and instead went underground, citing that he retired because of an injury he sustained from the escape. In reality he donned a mask and went to the streets of Konoha at night and started killing. All of his victims were spending time with their most precious person when he killed them. Only the one person, so the other could feel the pain of their separation. Then after he was done with the act, he used the blood of his victims and painted the nearest solid surface, forming red piercing eyes. This went on until he was caught by the First Hokage himself when he tried to enter the Senju compound. He was publicly executed."

The silence was smothering. What I could even say to such a story? Mom continued, absentmindedly stroking Hanako.

"The Clan spent a long time recovering from our tarnished reputation. And now they're worried. Seeing the same characteristics in you as they did in him is making them nervous. That Shiromaru has red eyes and now your Coyote style? Well it's not helping your case."

I was quiet for a long time. Well that was until a wave of lethargy hit me and I loudly yawned. Damn. They all snickered a little, and I tried to hide my face in Shizuka's long brown hair. It didn't go very well, and they snickered louder.

Tension slightly broken, they focused their attention back on me again. I could feel my eyes drooping. "Well, it would explain a lot. But honestly, they can talk all they want. I have you guys, so who cares what the others think?" A stronger wave of lethargy hit me and I closed my eyes. "If they…. want to hate me for…. existing….. then that's…. their problem."

* * *

 **Shizuka P.O.V.**

He was asleep. Of course the most dramatic thing I've heard him say comes right before he goes to sleep. I'm not even surprised.

"That was certainly interesting. Did you teach him that, Shizuka?" Hisao-sama asked. He dropped his whole Alpha aura, which I'm kinda glad for. It's a little terrifying.

"No. This is all him." Yuuna-sama was both looking at me and Arata, her expression pinched. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and lifted Arata into her hands.

You would think he was made of glass, the way she held him. Tsume-sama abruptly stood up. "Well it's been lovely. But I'm pretty sure Haruo's waiting for me." She waved bye and walked out. Once she got to the door Hisao-sama called out.

"Make sure the scent blockers are on!" Tsume didn't even turn around, just flipped the bird and left. I wonder if it's a family thing.

After the slightly vulgar interruption silence once again came upon us. Then I remembered the paperwork I still had to do. I stood to leave, watching them apprehensively.

"He still doesn't have his markings yet." I said.

"The elders don't need to know. It's not like they acknowledge he exists anyways." Yuuna-sama responded.

"Can't argue with that." And with a small bow, I made my way out. Leaving Arata, for the first time, with his family.

* * *

So yeah. It's been a while. Had most of this done already but my laptop decided to randomly shut down because of a fan issue and not wanting to aggrandize the issue I'm not using it . Been having a blast finding a way to write and upload from my phone. But it's here now so yeeh.

A little note for the future. I'm sure you've noticed by now I don't indulge in long descriptions much. Or descriptions at all sometimes. Now this is a double edged sword as it declutters the story and avoids the whole "His eyes were like 'insert three more sentences describing eyes here' trope but it also makes it so that theres no image at all of characters. For example , I've had almost no physical description of Arata yet . It's the 6th chapter. So I'mma try and fix that in the future chapters. Like all things, hope it doesn't suck.


	7. Chapter 7

I woke up in a bed, which was new. Next to me on either sides were my parents, both of them already awake and watching me.

"Rise and shine, pup. Academy's waiting." Dad said. I rose up and checked my connection to Shiromaru to see if he was in the area. I found him lying on an enormous dog bed at the side probably meant for Hanako and Aomaru, my dad's partner.

"Bathroom's in the left side of the hallway going out." Mom said, before she rose out of bed and out the door, dad following her. I wonder why there's a bed in a house this traditional. Well I can't deny it's comfy, so that's a plus.

I turned to Shiromaru and linked telepathically to him.

 _'Know. Awake.'_

 _'Need?'_

 _'Yes need.'_

 _'But Bed comfy.'_

 _'But responsibility.'_

 _'?'_

 _'Need because society.'_

 _'Ugh.'_

 _'Know.'_

 _'Shizuka become when?'_

 _'When responsibility. Now up!'_

 _'Fine.'_

Shiromaru lazily lifted himself up, eyes closed the whole time and sauntered over to me who was already out the door. We went through a quick bathing routine (by which I mean I washed him cause he was too lazy to himself) and went down to join my parents and their partners for breakfast.

Breakfast was a quiet but amiable affair. After cleaning up they told me they would bring me to the kennel to walk to the Academy with the rest. I assured them it wasn't needed. If Shizuka wasn't walking us I generally didn't come along as a general thing, so they solemnly agreed to just let me saunter over myself. I did notice their scent following me most of the way to the Academy, which means they most likely weren't hiding it. Honestly those two...

* * *

Arriving at the school I took a glance at the rankings that recently came out. They're nothing really concrete, especially this early on, but you can already see lines forming, especially regarding last names. In my year I'm 9th, which is near the top. My physical scores were nothing special for an Inuzuka but my written scores were way higher than anticipated on the last test we took. Turns out a lot of the questions weren't meant to be correctly answered by five-year olds. Woops.

"Cheh. Don't know why you're bothering to look in the first place. They don't really mean anything anyway." An annoyingly familiar voice said from behind me. It was Tomoe with her white haired partner, Mariko.

"Right. And that doesn't have _anything_ to do with your ranking right." There was a notable absence of the Inuzuka name in the top 15 compared to the rest of the big clans. The only other name there at 7th is Inuzuka Masato.

"Hmph. Of course not. I'm better than you. And everyone knows that already so what's written there is clearly a lie." Wow. So childish.

"On account of whom? Your parents? Poor kid. Feeding you all these lies."

Her partner next to her started growling. Mine was on my head, probably asleep. "N-No! My parents are the best in the world! They gave me my own kunai set when I got Mariko!"

"Oh. Very impressive. If we're done here.." With that I briskly walked away from the rankings board. I am totally not sorry for that.

"Yeah right!" She dashed back in front of me, insolent face mirrored by her ninken next to her. "Just because you have some stupid ranking doesn't mean you're better than me!"

I crossed my arms. "Oh yeah? Then prove it. If you can show me a way in which you are by some miracle 'better' than me then say it now. Class is starting soon and you're in the way."

She stayed quiet, head down.

"Well? I'm waiting." More quiet.

I gave it up as a lost cause and walked away. Just when I got to her shoulder I heard her voice utter one. Single. Word.

"Hunt." I stopped dead.

"... Two years from now. You and me face off."

"You're crazy."

The Hunt is an annual age old Inuzuka tradition that's sort of like a rite of passage. Put simply, you're dropped in a deadly forest worse than Training ground 44 where you're meant to catch one single worthy prey and bring it back to the clan. Without your partner. Problem is that most 'worthy prey' is usually a predator. One much bigger, stronger and faster than you. The Hunt is taken as a sort of placement test to see what your position in the clan will be. If you succeed you gain the famous red markings on your cheeks. If you don't, and you _didn't_ die, then you get foisted off into the non-ninja areas of the clan like the Farming Sector. Naturally those who aren't fit to be ninja are generally discouraged from trying and because of the risks most children opt to take part just before they turn genin.

The thing is, what Tomoe is suggesting is that we take it minimum _two years earlier_ than usual. It's the equivalent of a latter stage Academy student taking the chuunin exams. Although not impossible it's a stupid idea nonetheless. Not only that she's suggesting we compete against each other. While there aren't real winners and losers depending on the prey you bring back it can affect the size and thickness of your markings, which is of course a huge status symbol. Tsume for example is sort of a celebrity within the clan for having the largest markings in almost a century.

The problem is that taking it earlier won't grant you significant boosts to size or thickness so it just ends up making it harder on yourself for meager returns. Still, it is a _massive_ statement of intent to take it early.

"And why would I agree to such a thing?" I asked, dimly aware that the minute bell just rang.

"Are you afraid of me showing you up?"

"Far from. I just don't feel like attending your funeral." She clicked her tongue.

"I don't care. I'm going to do it–and when everyone sees my fangs way before you they'll realize they were looking at the wrong person all along." The heck's that supposed to mean?

She walked away not looking at me. Mariko stayed for a while to give me one last stink eye, then followed her.

Alright then.

* * *

I sat down in my usual seat at the back just before the bell rang. Honestly what is the girl thinking? Her last sentence would imply that there's people in the clan that don't look at me like unwashed laundry. But that's basically impossible with Shiromaru's eyes thrown into the mix. I sat there contemplating, paying just enough attention for attendance and aisatsu.

Once we got to math I completely stopped paying attention. Not that I needed to.

"Hey, can I borrow a pencil?" Your typical aspiring village boy next to me asked. Bright brown eyes with simple short brown hair, mostly covered by the fishing hat he wore. He looked a little like Inari if I was being honest.

"Why? Did you forget yours?" I whispered back, sending him a strong look. Ikkaku-sensei, while not as strict as Chizuru-sensei is still a stickler for rules.

He rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish expression. "Sorry. My friends and I were playing ninja and I had my pencil but it was in my pocket and then it broke." He half-whispered half-talked back. Oh children.

"Guys. Stop talking. You're distracting me from my work." The boy on the other side of me murmured. This one was practically the opposite of aspiring village boy. Black hair tied up in a small ponytail with striking black eyes to match it. He had Uchiha symbols plastered on every part of his clothing, and to finish it off, a small red and white earring attached to his right ear.

"Hey! Screw you! I just needed a pencil!" Village boy said in his half-whisper.

Uchiha boy clicked his tongue. "Cheh. Here." He flicked his wrist, and suddenly there was a pencil stuck in the middle of village boy's part of the desk. Uchiha boy smirked smugly at village boy's baffled look.

I held in a snort. "Good job. You can throw things. Very impressive." He sent me a supposed warning look, but it didn't have a real impact coming from a five or six year old.

"You should know that I'm Genin level at bukijitsu! Nee-san told me so. She knows everything."

"And we care because...?" He sent me another ineffective warning look, but went back to his 'work.'

Class went on as normal after that. Being stumped out of my train of thought about Tomoe instead led me to my new classmates. We don't really have assigned seating but people naturally form groups and cliques anyway, leaving guys like me alone. What's strange was that they were here sitting next to me and not off with groups they clearly belonged to.

After we got released for lunch I stalked off to my usual spot when village boy came up to me.

"Hey! What's your name?" Alright then.

"...Inuzuka Arata." I stared at him for a while. The silence stretched.

"Oh! My name's Kouta. I don't have a fancy last name like yours though. I wish! Could you see it? Hyuurou Kouta! Fourth Hokage!" I smiled. He filled his stereotype so well.

"We'll see about that, _Hyuurou_."

He sent me a challenging look. "You think _you're_ going to be Fourth Hokage?! Not a chance!" Well no duh. Although the name Yellow Flash hasn't really appeared yet there's plenty of rumors about Jiraiya's yellow haired student out there. Some already suspect him to eventually surpass the Sannin.

"We'll see, Hyuurou. For all we know it'll be Chizuru-sensei." We both shivered. I didn't even want to imagine what the Leaf would look like under Chizuru-sensei.

"Anyway I just wanted to thank you for standing up for me against that jerk Tetsuo." I did?

"You're welcome?" He seemed satisfied with that, flashing me a grin so big you could barely see his eyes.

"Well see you later, Arata! I gotta go meet up with my friends." He ran off after that, leaving me to stumble over to my usual spot. Hayama was already there, sending me confused looks.

"You can talk?!" I sat down and opened up my lunch.

"Well yeah. You've seen me do it before, no?" Sending him his same look back.

"NO!?" He got annoyingly loud this time, people were staring.

"Look. Why don't you just go back to talking about kunai trajectories. You were mentioning the Crow's Manoeuvre last time?"

He stood up abruptly, dropping his food onto the ground. "YOU WERE LISTENING!?" Yup, people were definitely staring now.

"Yeah. Yeah I was. Can you quiet down now?" He, just as abruptly as he stood up, sat back down. There was almost no transition. Just a flop to the ground.

"Why didn't you say anything?" He said, trying to salvage some food from the ground.

"Talking while eating is hard. And you seemed to enjoy talking on your own so.." I shrugged.

"So-you just-but-aaaaaaaaaagh!" He took his bokken off his back and swung it around a little. Almost cartoon-like. No exactly like a cartoon.

"Look, if I share my food with you are you gonna calm down?"

He looked back at me mid swing, big doe eyes pleading. "Will you talk to me then?"

"Sure?" I agreed. He instantly cheered up and went to normal again. After that we ate and discussed some more about bukijutsu. It seemed to be the day for it. He seemed to ramble even more heavily now that I was actually responding, which shouldn't be possible. But hey, this is the Naruto universe. Technically anything's possible.

Honestly, children are such a hassle.

* * *

When I got back to the compound (five minutes before the others) I noticed Shizuka at the gate, probably waiting for me.

"Hey. I just wanted to tell you I'm going on a vacation starting today. So you'll be on your own at the kennel for a while." I frowned. Ninja don't really get much in the way of vacation. Instead they have 'down time' between missions, which really isn't much if you want to stay afloat economically. The fact that she got a vacation is most likely because she's not on the village mission roster, or that she's going to do something she just doesn't want to tell me about. Could be both. It's probably both.

"How long will you be gone?" She seemed to be very interested in the tree behind me all of a sudden.

"Two-three weeks? A month maybe?" I tried hard to keep my mouth from dropping.

"How am I gonna survive for that long?!" She winced, then ducked down to be at eye-level with me.

"Look. I know you can do it already. You're five years old now. Plus, I asked Tsume-sama to train you while I'm gone. So you'll be having both your parents and your big sister there. Is that good enough?"

I bit on my cheek. "Fine. But only if you bring me takoyaki from wherever you're going."

She smiled fondly at me. "Good. Now give me my sappy hug." She said, holding out her arms.

I rolled my eyes and just sort of deposited myself on her and folded the arms around me. I got rewarded with twenty seconds of restrained airpipe.

She gave me one last look. This one filled with emotions I couldn't even try to guess, then Body-Flickered away. Should I prepare something for when she gets back? That seemed significant. Maybe I should leave some food for her too. Or a first-aid kit. A food first-aid kit. Perfect!

* * *

Everything sucks. It's barely been a day and they've already forgotten to give me food. You know how awkward it is to approach your caretakers and _kindly_ ask if they would mind giving me some as well. I mean, come on.

There's also no one but Shiromaru to talk to now. Everyone avoids me. Even the recently born ninken. Shiromaru also isn't the greatest partner in that regard, as he's sitting through the kennel classes. I've considered just going out but they probably wouldn't remember to keep the gate open if I did.

Finally, around four Tsume casually barged in and took me out of the place. She picked me up by my shirt and Body-Flickered to a nearby empty training ground.

"Oh thank Kami. Thank you so much." She put me down rather roughly. By which I mean she dropped me.

"What's wrong, kid? Can't handle the kennel without Shizuka in it?" I gave her a serious stare. Face pressed into hard lines.

"They served taiyaki as dessert. _And didn't give me any."_ Tsume looked like I'd tased her.

"I understand. Now what we do about it?" Good question. There are several ways I could go about this. One, cause a political shitstorm through dad. He knows there is some bias towards me but Shizuka and I haven't exactly told him towards what extent yet, fearing the reaction. Two, I could just live at the clan head's house. Not like many would _want_ to notice. Then again, that could cause another political shitstorm. Three.. Fucking shit. Do I really have to do this? Was this planned? There is no way this wasn't planned. Fuck it. Might as well. It's the fastest non-political one.

"Tsume, I need you to train me for the Hunt in two years." She opened her mouth, then closed it in her offended expression.

"I need to what? Kid, you can barely hold a Four Legs for two minutes, let alone two hours. You're crazy."

"My reaction exactly. Now you see.." I told her about Tomoe and her challenge, with the suspicious departure of Shizuka right after.

"You think you're being forced out of the kennels?" She asked incredulously.

"Or worse." There was a moment of silence, both of us deciding not to think of that as a possibility. "Please don't tell dad."

"Alright fine. I'll train you. But you owe me massively." I grinned.

"Then let's get started."

Honestly, people are just... Then again, some of them aren't that bad. _Some_ of them.

* * *

Yeah it's been a while. I am also ashamed at how long this took to come out. The writer's block, especially on Tomoe just killed me with this. At least she's a better character for it, with all the thought I put into her. Also, AP scores were released, like a while ago. I got a 2 on my AP Japanese exam, if you must know. Which can say whatever you want as to my authenticity for writing this story. I feel like I should have some kind of end card for these. Like a QOTD type thing, or just some random fact. Anyone interested? Can be literally anything.


	8. Chapter 8

Have I mentioned cardio sucks? If not, let me say it again.

 _Cardio can walk through an endless path of hellfire where the flames get hotter the further you walk in in a never ending cycle of evermore increasing pain._

Ugh. I lay face down on the dirt, arms and legs spread like a snow angel.

"Get up. You're far from done." I groaned. It's been a month and a half since Shizuka left, and she still hasn't come back yet. It's honestly getting me worried. In that time I have been learning more clan techniques and other things that would help me for the Hunt. Or trying to anyway. So far we've gone through scent tracking, interspecies communication, basic survival skills, canine transformation, tree hopping, Coyote style, etc.

"I said get up, squirt! I ain't got all day." She kicked my lifeless body. Affectionately of course.

"Ok ok I get it!" I lifted myself up like a caterpillar, slow and weird looking. The look on Tsume's face was worth it.

"If you got energy for that, you can run another lap. Now move it!" I jogged half-heartedly, giving off my best impression of antipathy.

"Alright stop." I beamed, flopping back down to the ground immediately. Since I was five, it wasn't all that far. Tsume crossed her arms, giving _her_ best impression of 'not impressed'.

"I'm gonna be honest with you. At the rate you're going, you're going to fail." My smile fell. "You're pretty good at learning new skills quickly but your end product is average at best. That'd be fine if you were doing the Hunt when you graduate, but _someone_ decided entertaining the taunts of a little girl into a murder forest was a good idea."

I bit my cheek, ignoring her last statement. "Then what do I do about that?" She sat down opposite to me and handed me a small piece of paper. Oooh okay.

"What do you know about chakra natures?" I held up the chakra paper for her and flared some chakra into it. It wrinkled around the point it was touched. Figures.

"Lightning, huh? Good. I'd have no idea what to teach you if you had something lame like water." I gave back the paper to Tsume, who waved it off. The paper stayed wrinkled.

"I thought your chakra nature was hereditary?"

"Usually yeah. Most of the Inuzuka have either lightning or fire ones, though mom inherited a secondary wind one so it's likely you have one as well."

"Do you have it?" She flipped through some handsigns and stuck a hand out. A small burst of wind knocked a wayward training dummy to the ground. I clapped semi-sarcastically. She pushed me in response.

"I ain't gonna teach you that one though. Wind's not very useful for more than offense and learning more than one nature at a time is too time consuming. Though it's not like Lightning on its own won't be hard either way."

"Why's that?" She took out a piece of paper and a pen. It looked very strange in her hands. She started writing zodiac signs with arrows between them.

"It's hard to control. On top of that, there's a steep learning curve. Can you guess why?"

After she finished with the signs she drew a circle with a line through it. "Because… it takes a lot of chakra? Since it can be so powerful." I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that lightning falling from the sky is hotter than _the sun_. That's a lot of energy and probably not something my five year old body could pull off. Well probably. This is Naruto after all.

"Close. Most lightning techniques are C-rank and up. Meaning there's almost no jutsu you could use to familiarize yourself with the element. _This_ " She shoved the paper she'd been working on into my face. "Is a D-rank jutsu that you're gonna focus on learning. It's basically the only one. After this of course." She took a small rod out of her pack and handed it to me. It had no handle, just an exposed-looking metal part with a small lamp on top of it. The finished paper had the words "Lightning Release: Charge Strike" messily written at the top.

"That's a practice rod. It glows different colors depending on the concentration of energy you put in it. It turns red for physical and green for spiritual. Yellow is perfectly balanced. Have fun." Then she vanished.

I sighed, putting the paper below a rock and grabbing the rod in two hands. I put some chakra into it. It lit up green for a second, then flickered out. Oh, so I have to do this continuously? Fun. Trying again I put in some more chakra only for it to turn purple. The hell does _that_ mean? After it flickered out I tried again, this time I focused on imagery. Electricity. Erratic, fast, destructive. It worked better this time, glowing green for a few seconds and then flickering out again. I looked at the chakra diagram. In the circle it had percentages written in it. The left side had the kanji for spirit and 39% on it while the right had the kanji for body, with 61%. So I need to put in more physical energy then? Grabbing the rod again, I tried focusing on putting in physical energy instead. And it changed nothing. A few more tries led it to be slightly less vibrant but still very much obnoxious stoplight green. Frustrated, I let out a burst of chakra and it promptly turned purple again. This bitch.

"I should haul Tsume back here to explain this." I tried searching for her chakra. Nothing. Not in the compound? Strange. As far as I know she's been staying in the compound to have dad attempt to teach her Clan Head stuff. Keyword Attempt. "Scent it is then."

* * *

Tracking her all the way back to a densely forested area on Training ground 67 I saw her with someone else doing… Oh my Kami. She seemed to stop mid… ew and sharply turned her head to the tree I was in.

"FUCK!" She shouted sharply as she spotted me. The guy she was with turned around as well and, like a deer about to be mauled by a three ton chunk of rapidly accelerating metal, stood stock still.

I leapt down to the ground, a quick application of chakra to my feet breaking my fall. In the meantime they seemed to have gotten their act together, rapidly reorganizing their clothes on their bodies.

"Well. Tracking you here by scent wasn't that hard. Although judging by the other more unsavory scents, maybe I should have just stayed away."

"You damn well should have." She snarled, as she approached aggressively. Time to play the baby brother card. I can still get away with that right?

"So mister.." I looked at the guy. Long blonde hair, friendly eyes, if there is such a thing. A strong jawline. Quite handsome by Leaf standards. Well at least Tsume has taste.

"Shin." He said curtly, eyes looking anywhere but at mine.

"What were you doing with Tsume-nee?" I said, trying to make it sound as innocuous as possible.

Tsume stopped her steady walk towards me and clicked her tongue. "You know exactly what we were doing. They cover it explicitly enough in the kennels." Whoops. Yeah I remembered that. It was mostly a strange mix of abstinence and.. pictures. I don't like to think about it.

Shin gave her a strange look. I focused my attention on him. His existence in itself is strange, since I don't remember Tsume ever mentioning having a guy in her life. Then again, I don't think I've ever met anyone she interacts with besides Kuromaru. Deciding to investigate a little more into him, I pushed some chakra into my nose and frowned.

Flowers, office, and.. Chizuru-sensei? A Yamanaka?

"Better question. Why were you doing with Tsume-nee?" I said, crossing my arms.

Shin broke out into a sweat, subconsciously walking backwards. "A Yamanaka. Are you sure that's safe?"

Tsume looked caught out, defensive. Her posture screamed tension, which she should be able to easily hide as a Jounin. "It's not like I'm going to marry him or something. Not something you have to worry about, Arata."

I could swear I saw the briefest flicker of hurt in both of their eyes. Interclan marriage isn't really a thing anymore mainly because of bloodlines. Most of the time a child from two different clans is at worst stillborn and at best incapable of using chakra. Most of those who did try still using it started vomiting blood. For obvious reasons, interclan marriage is banned in Konoha.

I resisted the urge to sigh. "Can you help me with this rod? And what the hell does purple mean anyway?" They smiled, relieved. I don't think they think that this is over but I'll let it drop for now, I guess.

* * *

 **Tsume P.O.V.**

"That was close. Way too close." I said, as soon as Arata's chakra signature left the training ground.

"Agreed. Maybe we should try scent masking. Or staying at a hotel, like normal people." Shin said with a smirk.

"No way. There'd be records and mom watches me way too closely already." Honestly the woman needs a hobby. Ever since she's taken that in-village patrol job she's been around too much. Which means she's in my business too much.

We stood in silence for a while. I was debating whether or not to pounce him again when he spoke up.

"The kid's smart. Too smart." I scoffed, getting closer to his side. The gradual approach is a little standard, but somehow he never sees it coming.

"You don't know the half of it. I taught him scent tracking _two weeks ago_ and he's already using it against me from halfway 'cross the village." The kid's learning rate is unnatural. Sometimes I feel like I'll tell him something and he already knows and is just waiting for me to be done explaining it. How he would know when he never goes out the kennels is beyond me. I haven't told him any of that though. His ego would get annoying. Scratch that, _more_ annoying.

"You'll keep him close right?" He said, a tinge of sadness covering his usually even voice.

I took his hand. It wasn't exactly the same but.. "Of course. I'm practically his caretaker at this point." I think mom and dad are starting to get suspicious with the caretakers, considering how often he's simply not at the kennels anymore.

"It only takes one time." I moved again to put my head on his shoulders.

"He'll be different. He's been opening up recently. I've been thinking of taking him somewhere outside the village a bit. Broaden his perspective you know?"

He finally looked to me this time. "And the clan will let you?"

Moving to face him I allowed a smirk, and my favorite kind no less. A predatory one. "I'm the Heir. If we start having problems it'll be _them_ that have to move." He smiled, some of the melancholy leaving his eyes.

Suddenly, I pushed him down, free hand re-removing the clothes he wore. "Now I believe I wasn't finished.."

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

Turns out the purple meant I wasn't even using Lightning natured chakra at all! I mean what even! On top of that, Tsume was about as helpful as you could imagine, with mister silky blonde hair next to her. Like some teenage girl the weirdo could barely string two sentences together without looking at him! Wait how old is she again? I never bothered to ask.

Pushing open the gates to the kennels I stepped into a familiar subdued atmosphere. One that wasn't present since the war. Kids that were playing outside were doing so quietly, and out of the way. Adults sat on the patio murmuring conversation to each other, weary faces masking their disdain for the world. The setting sun shined its last vestiges of light over the field, and everyone there made sure to watch it go.

I pocketed the rod and headed over to the adults. A few of them sent surprising looks my way, others looked resigned.

"What happened?" I asked. The adults stayed silent, trading gazes apprehensively, waiting for someone to be brave enough to speak up. Eventually a voice responded from the back, low and calm.

"He, at least, deserves to know." A large black canine in the back said. I recognized him as one of the elders, on account of the greying on the edges of his muzzle that was so recognizable in the meetings. Most of them never made it that far after all.

Another bout of silence, and the next voice rang out. Ume's. "Shizuka is in the hospital, in critical condition. Chances are she'll make it through, although it's not guaranteed."

My thoughts stopped. What could I even hope to think? Ume went on. "It's likely there will be complications, and she may not come out combat ready. In addition, she may have to-"

Nobuyuki interrupted her. "I hardly see a reason to tell him any more than this. We have told him what we needed to, and that should-" My thoughts raced back into action, suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to do.. _something._

" _ **Where is she**_ _?"_ A burst of chakra left me, and I could feel my canines growing. The adults sharpened to attention, suspicion marking them. Likely the intent I had thrown in the air. Right know I couldn't care less about what they thought of me though, I needed answers. And I needed them _fast._

Ume didn't look at me as she answered. "In the leftmost ward, third floor."

I sped my way out of the compound, Four Legs Technique making up for my lack of Body-Flicker. Dashing through the village I should supposedly still see everything well for the speed I was going, but my mind seemed to want to absorb nothing more than colors and lights, searching for the one combination of blue and white I needed.

As soon as I found it I rushed through the doors, only to have someone catch me by the midriff.

"And what do you think _you're_ doing?" A familiar voice murmured close to my ear. Turning my head I saw that one Uchiha officer I met last time.

I snarled at him. "I have no time for you. Out of the way!" I flipped through hand seals clumsily, transforming myself into my canine form. An Inuzuka's canine form is usually their partners, and taking full advantage of Shiromaru's tinier body I wiggled out of Fugaku's grip and ran the stairs up to the third floor on unfamiliar legs, leaving the surprised shouts of people seeing a random dog running through the halls behind. I frantically searched the left wing, eventually giving up on sight and relying on my nose instead.

 _There!_

I undid the transformation and opened the door to the room. I didn't know what to expect when I saw her. But I certainly didn't expect to see the Hokage standing at the side of the bed, covering my view of her face. Shaking myself off of my hesitance I entered the room and approached the bed. The man next to me seemed to pay me no mind, not even turning, although I could definitely feel his eyes on me.

Seeing Shizuka's face I held my breath. I had no comparison to hold it to, but it was still somehow worse than I thought.

She was unconscious of course, with her hair roughly torn out of her usual braid, and burn marks covering her neck going down and getting worse further down. Several dried up patches of blood littered her hospital bed, even after a supposed cleanup. The absurd amount of devices and seals she was hooked up to told an even worse story, giving horrible readings for everything short of her heartbeat. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, and her few remaining chakra reserves flickered awkwardly. I spent what felt like an eternity just watching her, trying to comprehend this new reality. _Shizuka_ of all people is here, injured. Not mom and dad, not Tsume. Not any field ninja, but _Shizuka._ I held onto the bed railings tightly, not trusting myself to keep me stable.

"I thought I could trust you to keep at least an Academy student out of the Secure Wards, Fugaku." I turned to the sound of Hiruzen's voice. Standing there at the entrance was Fugaku.. and my dad.

"Well, there were.. complications." He gave a pointed look at dad.

"I would like to know why one of my most trusted caretakers is currently in the hospital, Hokage-sama." He said curtly.

Hiruzen closed his eyes, then opened them again. "Approximately six weeks from today, one Inuzuka Shizuka was sent by personal missive of the Jounin Commander to a Hidden Mist camp on the outskirts of Hirojima island. Some hours before current time, she was found at the edges of the West gate."

"Why would Shikaku send one lone tokujou to disputed territory?" Dad asked.

"Unfortunately, the freedom to disclose such information does not lie with me." He responded.

Dad took a step forwards, officially in the room now. "Then who _does_ it lie with?"

"They are currently unconscious in this very room." Dad didn't have a rebuttal to that.

The Hokage looked to me. "I assume this is your son, Hisao-dono?"

Dad crossed his arms, not happy at the redirect. "Yes, he is."

I gave his gaze back to him. What is he trying to accomplish here? And why is he here in the first place?

"What is your name, child?" He asked, tone slightly warmer than when he talked to my dad.

"Arata. And not to be rude, Hokage-sama, but why are you here?" I'm really grateful that as a child I don't have to deal with all the stupid info wrestling and can just _ask._

He smiled. A deliberate action. "Likely for the same reason you are, Arata-kun." And of course because they're ninja, I still get stupid answers.

I turned back to Shizuka, hoping the child excuse again would help me get out of the conversation. I watched her more carefully this time, paying attention to the way her condition seemed to take a toll out of her. Sweat seemed to slowly accumulate on her face from some kind of exertion, as if she was fighting herself somehow. It made me anxious, knowing I could do nothing to stop this from happening. And knowing that in the future, she might not come back at all. Powerless to stop it. Not only her, but everyone around me would eventually be sent to fight and die. And what can I do? _Nothing._ Nothing but sit here at their hospital bed and hope they don't snuff it while I'm there.

At one point, once the conversation stopped and the Hokage had left, dad came to my side and took me into his arms and away from the bed. I didn't protest, since I could feel several similar chakra bodies coming up to this room. Med-nin probably. I situated myself on his shoulders, and with one last look at Shizuka, left the building.

I didn't want to talk the way back, but since we hadn't Body-Flickered, I assumed he wanted me to.

"..Shizuka will be fine."

"And what proof do you have of that." I didn't try to to make it sound accusatory, but it did end up coming out that way. I shirked a little away from him. He instead just held me closer. "Injuries like that leave a mark, but a certain kind of people always manage to pull through. I believe Shizuka is one of those people."

I thought back to the burn marks, the worst damage being at the heart. Not even mentioning all the other injuries the monitors indicated she had.

"You think so?" I murmured, barely audible to anyone not Inuzuka.

His answer was resolute.

"I know so."

For me, it wasn't enough.

* * *

So by my standards I'm actually early this time! Yeah! Go me! It still needs to be faster though. Digressing, this chapter took a turn and one that the story needed. I hope it'll turn out for the better though. Anywhoozles! I've been meaning to answer to some reviews but most of the time when I finish formatting these chapters I just kind of wanna be done with them and end up forgetting so this time I'm striving to be better. Do note that in order not to inflate the word count I'm going to be keeping these fairly short. If you want longer ones, PM me and I'll send you an essay or whatever.

 **CAN'T HANDLE THIS VANILLA** \- Thank you for supporting the story first of all! I love your enthusiasm! On the sweatdrop. I mean, I've been keeping the story pretty light in _light_ (see what I did there?) of the events that actually happen and the part where the parents come back is definitely a shift for Arata in that it opens him up to allow more positivity in life. So yeah.

 **Some Guy In An Ambulance** \- You came back! I wouldn't want more than that. Well I do, I would love more criticisms or suggestions but it's more of a _want_ want. Anywaaaay I'm glad you like the worldbuilding and characters so far. As for jounin-sensei.. It's gonna be a bit of a surprise most likely since I don't think it's been done before. But it has too much potential for storytelling so I'm using them.

 **HPfan7-8** \- :)

 **jsrd** \- ooooh this one. Ok so I think you're looking more for a 'fix-it' story than a more bildungsroman-esque story that this is. The only reason Arata is an SI is because I need his modern day values and perspective more than anything. As for his skillet, I mean he died right before graduating American high school. He doesn't have many skills so he's not going to magically reinvent the gun or something. And the day when "emotional issues" turn "filler" is the day when I quit fiction.

 **Yifto** \- I could maybe do some random fact that would flesh out the characters more but don't have a significant impact on the plot I guess. Stuff like their hobbies or something could be cool going off of their favorite color thing you mentioned.

Anyone else I didn't get to, I still appreciate you reviewing! But this is already too long sooo peace?


	9. Chapter 9

**Tsume P.O.V.**

I'm bored. Like, incredibly bored. I really don't know why I decided to do this now. I could have put it off for at least a year more! The nagging would be there, but it was an option! Why isn't Arata doing this instead?! He'd love it! Sitting around all day doing complex talk. Kami, I miss Shin. I wonder what he's doing right now. Probably having fun tending to his flowers or something. He should be tending to me! Ehehehe.. Tending...

' _Tsume. Pay attention. You're showing.'_ Kuromaru's voice rang out to me in my head.

Coming back to reality I noticed something wet coming out of my mouth and a few people trying their best not to give me disapproving glares while paying attention to Haimaru's droning. One of them happened to be my dad.

' _Oh shit.'_ I thought, quickly moving to inconspicuously wipe the drool off my face.

' _Oh shit is right. I don't think Hisao's gonna let it go this time. We're in a Monthly after all.'_

There was a round of voting. Five out of four voted against dad. A stalemate again then. He dismissed the council for a fifteen minute break and gestured for me to follow him to one of the many break rooms.

' _Good luuuuuck.'_ Kuromaru thought, as he followed Aomaru in the opposite direction. Bitch.

After activating the privacy seal on the room he turned to face me, eyes weary. "What do I have to do to get you to want to be Clan Head?" I winced slightly, like damn, tell it to me straight.

"I just don't understand how all this droning on and on about taxes and the village is going to do anything. We've had only dead ends in these last few months. Another one, just now." He took a long time to just examine me. It's not really anything new, but it still unnerves me to this day. It irked me, feeling this way under his gaze.

After a while he walked to the counter and poured some pre-made coffee for himself. He gestured to the comfortable seating on his opposite side, obviously wanting me to get comfortable for a lecture. I obliged him, walking slowly while never breaking eye contact.

He took a sip and started. "You know I never wanted to be Clan Head. I enjoyed other things, a lot of them more destructive than some seeming office job. But then Atsushi died in the First War, with Rei following after him in the Second. And, grudgingly, your grandad decided it would have to be me. Haimaru and Chiharu among others weren't pleased, but the elders didn't have near the amount of power than they do now. I wasn't pleased either. I was content, you know. Living a life on the explosive side of the R&D division, leading the research on new and more threatening forms of combat with a beautiful wife by my side. Far from the Inuzuka way." He added, with a smile. Something seemed to happen outside, as he looked through the window. It was a frog, leaping from one leaf to the pond below it.

"I guess I was running, in some way. When I came back and I saw the clan for what it was, it was different than they made it seem to be. I was outraged by the things that were happening, and decided to change it. I made a lot of sacrifices and concessions along the way, but. Ultimately, the Inuzuka came better off. I think you need to find that outrage. A feeling of 'I want to do better.'"

He left me in silence for a while, content to just slowly drink his coffee. His eyes were not on me.

What am I even supposed to think? Of course there's things wrong with the clan. Arata's situation is barely even the start. But I'm not the one who should be leading that charge. Hell, even Arata as he is now could probably do better than me. Just throw him into some emergency economics and government courses and he'd be fine. If that's not an option, mom or Rika are also better qualified than me. Hell, _Shin_ could do better. What could I offer to the table that others can't?

"For this next round, I want you to listen carefully to what they're really saying, and not the words that come out of their mouth." He set down his empty cup and opened the door, cancelling the privacy seal in the process.

I went back in, this time paying attention a little bit more to the small groups coming out of their respective break rooms. There, Haimaru. Flanked by his mate, Harumi. On the other side, a larger group. All heads or former heads of departments. In the front and leading them was Sayuri, eyes watching the room just like mine. We made eye contact. To their left was a distinctly separated group led by Nobuyuki and Ume. Some more flickered in, mostly elders without alliance. Yasuko, Kaoru.

The elders sat down in a circle, their followers seated behind them. Dad, once finished giving paper folders to them sat down at the largest seat with me flanking him. After everyone collected themselves dad started.

"The Council of the Inuzuka Clan of Konohagakure, on the first month of fall, 41CT, will now begin their second half of sessions." The scribe on dad's other side who's name keeps eluding me started writing furiously in his opened scroll.

"First topic on the floor," he continued, "regarding the recent Fairherbs, a medicinal herb contractor's, proposal. The proposal in question is a two-year contract providing Wind country exclusive medicinal herbs to the clan only. One of which, the razor mint, is crucial to treating the symptoms of Irregular Chakra Discharge disease. An affliction which presents a danger for many in the clan."

 _Shizuka._ Since coming back from the hospital she's been quite frankly a mess. Although most of the broken parts of her body have underwent healing and need mostly rest, it's being slowed down by ICD, or Irregular Chakra Discharge disease. A disease which makes you randomly discharge chakra in your body through harmful canals. Long-term symptoms include burst tenketsu and inflamed chakra pathways, which makes using chakra incredibly difficult. Sadly it's very common in the Inuzuka clan, since it's a major side-effect to overuse of the Four Legs Technique.

"Details on the trade are found in your given folders." There was a moment of shuffling in which the elders looked at the papers, all with the most stoic expression possible.

"The deal is nothing if not favorable." He added, with a tinge of hope.

"I propose a referendum." Haimaru croaked out. I resisted the urge to sigh. Of course. Dad, on first glance looked to be undisturbed but I could tell he was just as annoyed that _literally everything_ he said just _had_ to be contested.

"On what grounds?" Dad asked.

"The contract is unfavorable in regards to our relations with the village." Haimaru said, barely blinking.

"Referendum in progress." Dad said, like ripping off a bandage. Everyone sat up a little straighter.

Haimaru got into droning mode. "Our relationship with Hidden Sand has been shaky since it's conception. This is widely known. Now that the Second War has ended it has left us with an uncomfortable peace treaty after many rough battles with them." Rough doesn't even begin to explain it. The effects of the bastard's poisons still give me nightmares to this day. "I believe it is unwise to pursue this deal without the village acting on some part of it. If we are to proceed with the deal without notice to the villages it would likely escalate conflict between them."

"You would pursue more village interference in our already limited scope of actions?" Yasuko asked. "It would give them more leverage to further increase control over us. Give them a meter, they will demand a kilometer."

"Why should we even go through with the deal at all? Village or no village the returns for the price established just isn't worth it." In the back, Nobuyuki clamored.

This time dad came into the fray. "So you would deny herbs from them, many of them cheaper than the market price we are already getting for our pharmacies and veterinarian departments?"

"I believe you misunderstood me. The exclusive herbs are the object in question which I do not believe are worth the price, which is the whole point of the deal."

"And what price would you suggest would be worthy of the product then?" Dad countered.

Nobuyuki scoffed. "At least _half._ " Dad almost looked scandalized. Yeah no kidding. According to the folder given, bringing the price down by half is, in today's market, practically impossible. The contractor would probably sell them at a loss at that rate.

"You do not believe they are worth treating almost a dozen clan members, along with assisting in bringing revenue to our pharmacies and clinics?"

"And how would you know if there is even a strong enough demand for medicines incorporating these herbs?"

Ume interfered. "The market for it is there. Not only for international business but right here in the heart of Konoha we could treat or cure, on the top of my head, a minimum of five diseases common in Land of Fire domestic _and_ wildlife creatures. Diseases which we simply do not have the resources to handle currently. As Head Veterinarian this is a gold mine of opportunity just waiting to be tapped. And I think Fairherbs recognizes that as well." Nobuyuki gave Ume a dirty look.

"Well that brings us back to the main argument, doesn't it? Can we trust Sand enough for a deal like this to even be profitable?" Sayuri said, looking very unimpressed.

"Obviously not. They were our allies, if you don't remember, in our last war. And they turned on us. They have always wanted what we have. Resources, _land,_ power, status. Sharing of the only advantages they have on us will make them more jealous, make them loath. And in turn, make them start more conflict." Yasuko stated. It sounded like a final verdict.

Dad must have heard it too, for he called in a vote. Five out of four again. A stalemate, _again._

"Onto the next topic on the floor.." Clearly the vote wasn't satisfactory for anyone, since they didn't seem very eager to move on from it. I wasn't either.

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

"Will you stop _running_?" I pretended like I didn't hear her, and kept marching. The stop line was long behind me already.

Tsume stood herself in front of me. "I said stop running. That means you stop running." I bumped into her, not intending on stopping. She of course didn't move, so I was left static. The pain was catching up to me, and I collapsed on her. She didn't catch me, just let me slide off her leg and on the ground.

My vision was blurry, my legs and sides hurt. I stopped moving anything but my legs long ago. I had a massive headache. Yet I still felt far from done.

"You need to rest. You can't go on like this, and trying to delude yourself into thinking so is going to hurt you in the long run. Especially with your age." With no regards to me she picked me up and brought me back to the Head's house where I'd been staying recently. I couldn't move, so with a click of her tongue, she bathed and fed me, then flopped me down onto my futon. Finally regaining some feeling into parts of my body I could feel that itch again. It came whenever I sat still for too long. An itch that seemed to call me to do more. More and more and more until I finally satisfied it. If not, the itch would develop. And get worse, until I saw more than I wanted to.

"Now what's really your problem? I really doubt Shizuka would want you to join her sick bed." I kept from wincing. It wasn't all that hard, considering my state.

The problem? How could I tell her? How could I tell her that this wasn't the end? That there would be another even more devastating war in a few years? That her children would grow up to fight a war even worse than that? Shizuka would be the start. Next it would be mom and dad. And it would just keep spiralling, I just knew it.

"...I'm scared." She raised an eyebrow.

"What? For the Hunt? Little late for that, kid." If I had enough energy for it, I would scowl at her.

"I'm not strong enough. We're ninja. Made to fight. And I'm not strong enough." If there was one thing that really drove home how messed up of a place this was, it was my body. It felt disorienting, being faster and stronger and more flexible as a five year old than I could even dream of being as an adult from Before. My mind would automatically focus on different things as well, things that could be a threat. Things that moved or made noise went off like an alarm bell constantly. I was born a weapon. Intentionally bred to fight and kill. And every action I took subtly reminded me of that. I learned to live with it for a while. Ignored it and repressed it. But Shizuka made it all come back. Shizuka is strong, no doubt about it. I experienced it firsthand no less. But even she was dominated by whoever or whatever she faced out there. Meaning that even with all the strength I had, I would barely weigh a kilo compared to the tonnes next and opposite to me. Knowing there were people that could _think_ you away, and seeing it was so, so different.

"And?" This time I did scowl, however much energy it took me.

"People are going to die. Tomorrow… today.. I can't sit around anymore." She laughed, _laughed._

"That's just reality, kid. It doesn't matter if we're ninja or not. We're all gonna die. The menaces of this world want to see you dead, ninja or no. You're safe here for now. Why stress out about it?" Her answer made me pause, but really what did I expect from Tsume?

"The future will catch up to us." I said, my eyelids closing from fatigue.

"Then let it." Tsume challenged.

* * *

I was sitting in class, as usual not paying attention. Just taking the time to think. Occasionally using the small marble I had for some chakra control exercise I picked up from a book.

" _Then let it."_

I kept from banging my fist onto something. How in the seven rings of hell does that even make _any_ sort of sense? I could be killed, maimed and tortured so easily in this world. Mind controlled, raped and defiled on nothing more than a whim! Why would I _let_ that come to me? Come to others?

"Arata." A stern voice sounded from across the classroom. "Explain Rule 62 of the Konoha Shinobi Handbook and why it was implemented." Ugh. Shinobi Rules. Otherwise known as 'shoved down your throat' brainwashing 101.

"Rule 62 states that when caring for an injured client a non-iryo nin may not use iryo ninjutsu without clear verbal permission." I drawled. "The reason for the implementation of this rule comes from the idiocy of an inexperienced chuunin harming an incredibly wealthy client when trying to heal him and after the fuss raised about it, promptly getting demoted to genin."

Chizuru-sensei nodded once, as if that _wasn't_ a super abridged version of an explanation. Well it's better than what she usually gets, since we're all five.

"And what would you do if given this situation in the field? For example, say you know the basics of the Mystical Palm Jutsu and your client has just been sliced across the arm after a combat scenario gone wrong. You have no first-aid kit as it was used extensively on said mission already. You are the only member of your squad left, and your client is unconscious, bleeding out from the cut given by your assailants. What would you do?" Is that interest she's showing me? She usually doesn't ask follow up questions when asking for Shinobi Rules. Seeing as they're not supposed to be questioned and all.

"If waking him up doesn't work I would heal him. He has to be alive to be able to bitch about it right? If he prefers his ego over his life then it's already too late for him." She raised an eyebrow, barely noticeable under the glasses she wore.

"Are you implying you would kill the client if they raise complaints over their imperfect healing?" This got some ruckus from the other children listening. Apparently they didn't get the underlying context. I started rolling the marble around my arm, using only chakra to stick it to me and move it along.

"It's just an option, not one I would take if I didn't have to of course. It would solve a lot of problems, though. Less bitching for one."

Chizuru-sensei was quiet for a while. "An interesting perspective." She moved a piece of paper from one stack to another on her desk. "See me after class." Oh fuck. Some of the kids, sadly out of my immediate reach, sniggered.

After that the class went on normally, although some kids would give me looks every now and then. At the end of the day, after the rest of the kids left I was called on the intercom to come to Room 201. Hayama gave me a sympathetic look upon walking to greet his parents, but didn't say anything. Well I didn't need your comfort anyway. Pah.

Opening the door and walking in I saw Chizuru-sensei at her desk working on some papers at the front of the classroom. She didn't acknowledge me walking in, so I just sat down at the row of seats closest to her, and waited.

For a long time, the only sounds I could hear were the winds from an open window outside, the clock ticking, and the scribbling of her pen. In the halls you could hear a voice every now and then, coming and going. Chizuru-sensei continued to write.

Wait. Am I in detention right now?

I slowly reached for my pouch, and pulled out two marbles this time. Chizuru-sensei paused for a second, her eyes obscured by the glare of her glasses, and continued scribbling. Alrighty then.

This went on for another twenty minutes, with me adding more and more marbles to my body, rolling them all over the place. At nine marbles it became a little harder, and sometimes one of them would fall off of me. At those times, Chizuru-sensei stopped, supposedly to stare at me, and then promptly going back to writing. The stack of papers she was working on seemed to have no end. I didn't envy her.

"Arata," I started, and half of my marbles dropped to the floor. "Focus more on areas where you lack control. Forgo the arms, for you have no pressing need to improve control there. Instead increase the amount of marbles you circulate at your hips, back, and feet." I stared at her for a while. I mean, what?

Shaking out of it I followed her instructions, and found I had to significantly decrease my marble count to four to be able to keep up. The more I rolled them along, the more my concentration got lost in it. Time passed slowly.

After another hour of silence my chakra reserves started dipping, so I stopped using the marbles and moved on to a book about genjutsu. I didn't expect to become a genjutsu expert anytime soon, but any sort of skill in it might prove helpful one day.

Another hour went by, and it started getting dark outside. In all actuality I had already finished the book. I just needed to go over some of the techniques listed. I had been practicing one of the easier ones to learn, a harmless one really. I just needed a target.

I arranged my book so as to stand on its cover, hiding my hands from view.

 _Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Technique_

Focusing, I made it so that there was an extra pen on the edge of her desk that looked like it would fall off. Not gonna lie to you, doing even this is really hard. It's not even moving, it's static.

She took a small break from her paperwork, stretching her arms over her head. She looked towards the pen, then towards me. She took off her glasses.

* * *

….This is pretty cool actually. Didn't know there were genjutsu specialists that could create entirely new words like this without a Sharingan.

"You are surprisingly calm about this." Chizuru-sensei said. She was standing opposite of me, without her glasses. Her eyes were an intimidating yellow-brown mix, yet it didn't make them any less piercing.

I looked around. Streams of color danced in between each other, blending to form more colors. It seemed to move and stand still at the same time. Looks a lot like expressionism, though I wouldn't know. I was hardly into art when I was younger.

"Maybe. How did you do this anyways? Knowing how to make entirely new realms isn't exactly common." I asked.

"It is an extension of my Kekkei Genkai, along with a combination of seals." She didn't elaborate, which was fair. Sounds complicated enough from just that. I mean what kind of seals alter your eyes?

"This technique is an original one strictly for my use. It allows me to communicate with anyone through mere eye contact. One minute here is roughly one second outside." Interesting. So it's like Itachi's Tsukuyomi? No. Not truly. If I really tried I could probably break out of this, even as an academy student.

"So what do you need to talk about then?" That required a covert intelligence jutsu like this, went unsaid.

"Your more recent results have been inconsistent with data accumulated over the past few months, and almost directly conflict data provided by the Inuzuka Clan." Figures. Over this last month, I haven't exactly been hiding what I could do anymore, making my performances (on paper) skyrocket. Although I'm still not at the top on more physical tasks, I am undisputedly on top for written and theoretical works, which put me at number 2 on the rankings. I'm kinda surprised I didn't clinch number 1, but I guess written tests can only count for so much. Not that it mattered in the end.

"And you want to know why." Not a question, a statement.

"I see no reason to beat around the bush." Fair enough. She's a Yamanaka, advanced enough to do this kind of BS, so she probably could figure it out. Maybe even more than I'd want her to.

I sighed. "Holding back just didn't seem like an option anymore." Any benefit I got from laying low paled in comparison to not being ready when the time came. I needed strength, and it's hard to get strength trying to hide it.

"And your reason for doing so in the first place?" I.. didn't have an excuse. Not one that didn't sound treasonous anyway. Bluffing my way through it is then.

"The caretakers back home don't like me much. I figured standing out would draw more ire than necessary." There was a pause. Chizuru-sensei didn't stop stop staring at me. So far the only thing she's moved has been her mouth to talk. It's kind of unnerving. Like move, woman! Do something! You're making me very self-conscious here.

"Your Head Caretaker informs me you struggle with communication. He told me rather plainly we should offer you no more attention than required, a notion not given rationale." _Nobuyuki._ I bit my teeth.

"He also told me, through many gratuitous words, that I should instead spend my efforts around other members, one Inuzuka Tomoe especially." My eyes narrowed.

"He specifically outlined Tomoe?" She nodded. Finally. Not a statue. Although am I even talking to her? Or just an avatar? For all I know she could be watching me from any angle.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

More awkward silence. Was that an indicator for the end of the conversation? She hasn't cancelled the technique. Does she expect me to do it? Is she just playing with me. Probably.

"What is a Konoha shinobi to you?" She asked abruptly.

I tried not to look away. "Which answer do you want me to give you?" This was the true clincher, yet still, no expression.

"Yours." She replied, not missing a beat.

I took some time thinking about it. I knew what it meant to be a shinobi after all. It meant making deals with death, over and over and over until the one time you couldn't pay the dues. Of course I could hardly give her that answer, given her position.

"I… I don't know. I don't know what it means to be a shinobi. Let alone a Konoha one." And it was true, in some way. I didn't _really_ know. Not until I was out there myself, fighting.

"Then tell me. Do you have precious people in your life? People you'd want to protect?" Her question gave me pause. Chizuru-sensei was about the last person in this village I'd expect to come up to me with this. Right next to Orochimaru.

"Of course I do." I don't even know how it happened. One day I was alone, and the next I wasn't. Maybe they were always there, and I wasn't. Regardless, I needed to protect them. Things would start to go downhill, and fast.

"Then you already know what it means to be a shinobi." I wasn't satisfied with the answer. Apparently it showed since she went on. "Of course that is far from all. But at the core, that is what a shinobi does. They endure, to protect."

忍ぶ 1. To conceal oneself; to hide. 2. to endure; to bear; to stand; to put up with.

"Their suffering is silent and hidden. It is necessary, to keep ourselves afloat."

What more could I add to that? Refute it, and deny it's truth? Unlikely. It was silent again. It seemed to be a theme of the conversation.

"You have served the duration of your detention. You are dismissed." So it _was_ a detention!

Before I had time to comment on it, the technique shattered and we were back in the classroom again. Chizuru-sensei continued writing as if nothing happened. Indignantly, I picked up my marbles and quickly left the classroom. Knowing Chizuru-sensei she'd likely assign another detention if I tried to talk to her now.

Outside at the exit I saw an unexpected figure waiting for me. "Shouldn't you be on patrol with mom?" I asked her.

"Yuuna hardly needs me to be there for something simple like that. The only reason I still go is because I have nothing better to do." Hanako responded. We started walking in the direction of the Clan Compound. Her bright orange fur stood out heavily, even in the approaching darkness of night.

I laughed a little. "So what are you here for then?"

"Shizuka was worried about ya, so she sent me to come make sure you're not dead in a ditch somewhere." I ignored the stab of pain at the mention of Shizuka.

"Please, if I were to die in the village, I wouldn't choose a ditch for a grave. Too dirty." She snickered.

"What, too low class for ya? Would an honorary head on the mountain do?"

"Depends, are they gonna add Shiromaru to it?" I really like Hanako. She always manages to keep the light around, especially when you need it. Tsume admires her a lot, and I can see why.

"Only if they're feeling generous." She quipped.

Once we got to the compound I could see Shiromaru jogging (never running) to us. "What's up with you?" I asked him.

"Oh thank kami you're here. Aomaru just wouldn't leave me alone! He keeps making me train!" It's kind of creepy how fast his speech is improving, even if that's half of what is day is dedicated to. He hopped on to my shoulder and tried to hide around my neck. I exchanged amused glances with Hanako.

"And that's a bad thing because..?" He looked super offended.

"Not you too!" Hanako laughed.

"A little training here and there wouldn't hurt. Though enjoying your youth wouldn't go amiss either, you know." She added. Neither of us commented.

"Well I'm here now, so you can tell Shizuka I'm going to try finding Tsume for training." She gave me a look, but didn't say anything else as she vanished in a Body-Flicker.

After training with Tsume (who was with Shin again) I went to the bathroom to shower. Shiromaru went in with me, since Aomaru showed up about halfway through, much to his dismay.

After bathing I looked at myself in the mirror. I could only see my face since I was so small though. I saw close to shoulder length brown hair and sharp eyes. Unlike most Inuzuka though, my hair was flat as a board, and if you looked closely, my eyes were more brown than black. They're probably from my mom's side, since her dad was a Senju. One of the few clans who could interbreed, since their trait was chakra control and all. It was strange how much history there was in just my face.

"What are you looking at you weeaboo?" I turned my head sharply to Shiromaru.

"Run that by me again?" He looked at me like I just forgot the number seven existed.

"Did you forget what a weeaboo means?"

I switched to telepathy. ' _No not that, you idiot. How do_ you _know?'_

' _I get a view of your memories sometimes. Your mind's like a sad dam or something, it's always leaking.'_

I was speechless for a while. Or thoughtless, whichever.

' _So you know about-'_

' _The future? Oh yeah. Looks a little too exciting for me, gonna be honest with you.'_

' _Then why didn't you say anything the whole time?'_

' _Uuuhh. I have no excuses. None.'_

' _What do you mean you have no excuse?'_

' _Well I just kind of felt like you already knew?'_

I made a weird sound I couldn't explain even if I tried.

' _So we're just gonna run with that? Fate of the world in our minds and everything?'_

' _Yup.'_

There was an awkward pause, both of us just staring at each before we burst out laughing.

' _Can I be honest with you?'_ I asked.

' _Yeah?'_

' _You look like a Pokemon.'_

' _What! No I don't!'_

' _Well you're not like any other dog I've seen before, and you're just the right size too!'_

' _I'm a ninken! What kind of Pokemon would I even be?!'_

' _Probably a normal type, since you're so lame.'_

' _Oh shut up already.'_

I grinned. At this point, we had already left the bathroom and went into our room. I crawled into my futon, with Shiromaru doing the same next to me.

' _Are you sure about all this? Things are going to go wrong. Majorly wrong. We're going to war.'_ I asked.

' _Yeah I can't say I'm not worried about that. But the thing is, we're not dead, and we're not going to be dead for a while after this. If the future scares you so much, how about you start thinking about the present?'_

' _...How old are you again?'_

' _How old were you last time?'_

' _That's not fair.'_

' _I know, it's great.'_

Ugh.

* * *

"All I'm saying is that tilt matters, especially with injuries since it can press on different nerves that way." Hayama looked disgruntled.

"You don't get it! It's not that simple! You have to-" He stopped once he heard an announcer voice come over the playground.

"Will the following students come to the Principal's office please. Mitarashi Anko...Shirakumo Hayama...Akimichi Torune….Inuzuka Arata…."

The voice went on. We made eye contact, and started walking back into the building.

* * *

"I would like to congratulate you on the stellar performances you have delivered thus far.." He went on and on. The principal is known for being long winded but this is getting annoying. I could start feeling my itch again. It was usually somewhat dormant during school, but the fact that I could see children walking out to their parents meant we should have been gone a long time ago.

"I think the message would be a lot clearer if _I_ told it for them, Eisuke-sensei." One of the teachers who had been watching until now, stepped forward. I didn't recognize her.

"All of you were elected to take part in Konoha's Prodigy Initiative." Wait, what?

"Which means, you'll be skipping grades."

* * *

So this is my longest (and I think) best chapter yet. Though it might have dropped off a little at the end but it's been forever so I decided to upload it anyway. We have officially reached the meat of the Academy Arc. Do I have arc? I don't know. Am I rambling? Definitely. Anyways, if you have criticisms, suggestions, or anything really, leave a review! I do quite like them.


	10. Chapter 10

"The process is simple. It's just like the rest of the Academy. You keep up, you stay. You don't, you go back. Simple as that." Chizuru-sensei came to us and handed each of us a bundle of papers. Like our textbooks they were very colorful and had lots of eye-catching little figures and arrows pointing at relevant information.

"The papers we've given you show your new grade, class assignment, and other general information. Memorize them." I flipped the page on my given papers. Apparently I went up two grades. Since I couldn't look at other people's pages from here I couldn't tell if that was unusual.

"The changes are effective immediately, so you'll be going to these classes as soon as tomorrow." I flipped the pages and found a small diagram on the back detailing my performances thus far. Oh look. It even has helpful suggestions at the bottom on what to improve on. How nice.

"As part of the Konoha Prodigy Initiative Program, or PI for short, you'll be given certain privileges. PI kids for example, have unlimited access to the genin level archives in the library." Chizuru-sensei added.

"That said, it is a great responsibility to be given such a status, and I expect you all to carry it with honor." The principal finished, with a rueful look to his teachers.

They went on for a little while more until we were finally dismissed to go home.

On the way back down I compared papers with Hayama. "We're in the same class. Do you think it's a coincidence?" He asked.

I gave him a droll look. "We're being trained by ninja. Nothing is coincidence around here."

Once Hayama left with his parents I decided to stick around for a little while and thoroughly read the papers I was given. I didn't get the chance to though, as I was viciously ambushed in the middle of doing so.

"Mom, did you forget I like breathing?" I wheezed out. She eased up a little on her death-grip, allowing me the great luxury of respiration.

"Oh, what's that?" I tilted the papers a little to the side so she could read it.

"Prodigy something something." Her eyes lit up in acknowledgement.

"Oh that. I was wondering when they would give it to you." She said, a hint of pride in her voice.

"You know about it?" I asked, intrigued. She lifted me up and set me on her shoulder instead, and took to walking.

"Mmhmm. Tsume was part of it for a while, when the program first started."

"So what's it actually for?" They said they would give us "privileges," whatever the hell that means. They mentioned genin level access to the library, but not much else. The papers we were given didn't elaborate much on it either.

"It's mostly to get talented kids through the system faster. It's also a highlight to other teachers to pay you a little more attention than others. I think Tsume also got some extra work along with it? I don't remember." So it's like an honor roll compared with some special kid program type thing? Alright. It probably won't change much, anyway.

"Mmm. Hey mom, can you teach me more shurikenjutsu?" She sighed, but it wasn't a fed up one. "So it's a yes then?"

* * *

"Hello class. These are our new students joining us from other classes. Make sure to free up some space for them." Our new homeroom teacher, Yamada-sensei, said. He was nondescript, a lot different from the quiet oppressive aura Chizuru-sensei held.

I switched my gaze to the class, trying to find a spot big enough in the rows of children for both me and Hayama. A lot of the children were obviously older than us, though I could see a small few a little closer to our age, likely being PI kids as well. They all gave us scornful gazes, which could only be a good sign. Hayama nudged me to a corner in the back that was semi-free and we headed over there. He seemed nervous but I didn't mind. The glaring would lessen the more we were here, and Anko wasn't here. Always a bonus.

"We'll be fine." I whispered to him.

He gulped. "I hope so."

"I'm just glad he didn't make us introduce ourselves." I muttered with a smirk as the teacher continued talking about today's schedule.

"We will start our second round of sparring today at noon, so make sure not to waste too much chakra during class today." Both of our heads sprang up at the announcement. The few other PI kids who joined us in the class did the same. We would actually be using our chakra? And not only that, but spar?!

* * *

"Alright let's start with…" Yamada-sensei looked over each of our groups carefully, cross referencing it with the list in his hands. "Arata-kun and Ayame-chan." Oh great.

I hesitantly walked over to the middle of the makeshift ring around us meant to serve as some sort of arena, and saw a girl on the opposite side of the ring do the same. She seemed to have none of the trepidation I did though.

I started prepping myself up, and focused on my target. I recognised her as one of the PI kids I came into the classroom with, so she's around my age, with somewhat long ash-gray hair and a vibrant face. Seems nimble, for a supposed five year old.

"Let's do this, yeah?" She exclaimed. I didn't trust her eyes. Those eyes only spelled danger.

"Um, sure." We made the Seal of Confrontation and waited for Yamada-sensei.

"Begin!"

Before I got time to assume a stance, Ayame practically flew over to my side, fists at her side.

'Shit.' I rolled to the side, and kicked outwards with my left foot while on the ground. It hit her guard, and she stumbled away from me a bit.

'Okay new plan.' I kicked away a punch she sent for me, and blocked her follow up punch with my elbow, bringing me closer and closer to my face. She smirked, and headbutted me. I fell down to the ground, holding my face. Because _ow_. Feeling her chakra coming closer, I rolled to the side again to see her heels come eerily close to my head. This girl doesn't mess around.

In the background people were making noise over our fight. I jumped off of the ground, and prepared a stance. This would be difficult.

Having to duck another punch, I was feeling very much over it and started a kicking barrage, lifting my left leg.

Left, left, under. A simple pattern really, but highly effective. It swept her off her feet and this time _she_ had to roll away. She clutched her right arm a little, all with a smirk on her face, not once taking her eyes off me. Creepy much?

"You're really good."

"I could say the same for you." I leapt, claw hands forwards.

She ducked and blocked her head with her arms, gaining the brunt of the damage there. We had to take a moment to rebalance ourselves, and re-angle. That didn't go all that great did it. She smiled _again_.

"Too bad I'm gonna take you down anyways." Suddenly, she crouched down, changing her stance to better accommodate.. whatever she was doing. She sneered at me, and launched.

She appeared down at my feet, and kicked upwards towards my chin, breaking my crossguard. Then slammed another kick through my stomach. She wasn't done, however, and proceeded to grapple my arm within hers, snaking around it and using that leverage, catching my head in a leg-lock, flipping me over and _slamming_ me on the ground.

Through the haze that came from the assault, I could vaguely hear the match being called.

"That was so fun!" She offered me a hand, and we made the Seal of Reconciliation. Already Hayama-sensei was calling up the next fighters.

I rejoined Hayama, this time with Ayame next to me. "We have to do that again! I've never had a challenge from someone so small before!" I bristled.

"What do you mean small? I'm taller than you!" She still. Kept. Smiling.

"Smaller than the rest I took down, so small enough." I clicked my tongue. Hayama looked between us, not saying a word.

I dedicated my focus on watching the other matches, and decidedly not on Ayame, who was still next to us for some reason. None of them were quite as fast as her, but still displayed some interesting technique. One of them, a Hyuuga based on his fighting style, took out his opponent in less than ten seconds. Interesting.

Hayama eventually had to go up and fight, and because Yamada-sensei took pity on his jittery form, paired him up with an even more scared-looking boy. Another PI kid. Hayama's never actually learned taijutsu. His parents teach him kenjutsu instead. I figure that he thought he could compensate with the Academy style later, but that's all messed over now. And as a consequence, he lost. Horribly. The jeering was annoying, and would do nothing for his self-esteem. I took him out of the ring, as he was practically frozen under the disdain, and I made sure to glare at the worst offenders. We were far from done here.

"We'll get back at them, don't worry about that." I whispered into his ear. He didn't look any part of reassured. I very deliberately took him with me to the opposite side of the ring, but there she was again, as if I totally didn't go here on purpose.

"Mm? What's wrong?" She asked, her face the zenith of innocence. I didn't answer her, and just resolved myself to watching the last of the fights. I was very aware I was being unnecessarily obstinate, but something about her didn't quite strike me as right.

"Hey, are you okay?" I heard from behind me. Glancing from my peripheral vision I saw Ayame there checking up on him, her hands glowing _green._

"How are you _doing_ that?" I asked, a little shaken. The amount of chakra needed for any type of iryo ninjutsu at this stage makes it pretty impossible to use. Even a simple Diagnostic Jutsu would drain my reserves in seconds.

Hayama looked at her just as wondrously as the large scrape on his leg healed over.

"Sorry, that's all I can do. This stuff's pretty draining ya know?" She said, a little strain visible on her face.

Hayama seemed to pay it no mind. "That was awesome!" Ayame just giggled a little, sitting down next to him.

A little while later all the fights ended and we were called back inside. "Hey why don't you guys come to my group tomorrow after class?" Ayame asked.

"What group?" I asked, making sure to put myself between her and Hayama.

"My group! We meet at Training Ground 12 and just hangout or train. It's fun!"

Hayama looked ready to accept but I cut him off. "We'll think about it." She nodded, and walked over to her seat in the classroom.

"Why didn't you say yes? We could finally make some friends." I tried not to show my displeasure at the dastardly statement.

"I don't trust her. You don't need Jounin level perception to tell that something about her is just off." Hayama puffed up his cheeks.

"She's nice. You're just mad she beat you."

"Am not!" I hissed, just as Yamada-sensei walked in after some of the kids who took forever to get back in the classroom.

"Whatever, fine. We'll just go see what they're all about. That's it. That's all we're gonna do." Hayama nodded slowly and turned to Yamada-sensei starting up the class again.

* * *

"Why am I here again? It's my day off! I could have caught up on more sleep." Shiromaru whined on top of my head.

"You're insurance. If things go haywire I'mma need you there to help." I responded.

Hayama walked beside me, bokken on his hip. "Since when can your partner talk?"

"Since ever. He just never bothered before." Hayama just nodded, not wanting to pry further.

We reached the place where Ayame stood waiting for us. "Finally, you slowpokes! Everyone is already there! Let's go!"

And then she was gone, already hopping through the village rooftops. I clicked my tongue and followed after her, Hayama on my tail. Not literally of course.

Reaching Training Ground 12 I looked over the familiar field and lake. Aaand yup, there she was.

"You!" Anko shouted. "Ayame-chan! What is he doing here?!"

"What-what do you mea- Arata!?" Oh look, Tomoe too. This is just great.

"Oh hey! it's Arata!" Kouta shouted.

I almost sweatdropped. ' _What is Hayama then? Hot air?'_

' _For all his presence, he might as well be.'_ Shiromaru replied in my head.

' _Hey, be nice.'_ He didn't respond.

"Sup, Hyuurou." He grinned, as all three of them walked over. I looked at the rest of the collected children. There were about ten total, some I recognized, some I didn't.

"Ayame-chan! When you said you'd bring in talented new members this is not what I thought you would bring. Scared boy and broody boy? Why would you bring them here? They can barely talk! They can't fight!"

I smirked. "Says the girl whose ass I beat and then ran off." She grinded her teeth together at the reminder.

"That never happened you dimwit! I was going easy on you."

Tomoe next to her cheered her on. "Yeah there's no way you'd lose to him, Anko!" Anko smiled nervously.

"Then how about this? We do a 3 vs 3. Anko, Tomoe and her partner against Hayama, Arata and his partner. I'll ref." Ayame suggested. Yeah she _definitely_ planned 's no way she didn't. All the children in the group started jeering.

"Ooh you should totally do it, Arata! It'd be fun to see you fight." Kouta added over the noise.

Tomoe looked ready to go, hunger in her eyes while Hayama backed off and hid slightly behind me. I sighed. "Hayama?"

"..I won't be on my own, right?" He asked, voice small. In the background the rest of the kids all psyched themselves up for the coming fight.

"Be there the whole time. Shiromaru too." Grudgingly, Shiromaru inclined his head. This was going to be tough fight, no two ways about it. Mentally going through my inventory, cross referencing it with what I knew of my opponents I knew I came up laughably short. I was going to rely pretty heavily on Hayama here to get the job done, so I definitely needed him on his game.

The children looked content to keep their merry jeering going for a little while, Ayame gently guiding them off to the side to make space for us. Taking advantage of it, I whispered my battle plan to Hayama. He seemed to get measurably more confident the more I explained to him. Seems he likes a plan.

Squaring up in front of our opponents the crowd noise died down and the focus shifted back over to us. There was a kind of weight in the air, some important focus or force that I couldn't quite place settled over the place. Even Shiromaru looked serious. Time to get my A-game on. Whatever that is.

Ayame stood at the front, her arm in the air. "On my signal." She made eye contact with each of us, before quickly bringing her hand down. "Go."

I flew into hand signs as Shiromaru and I moved in front of Hayama towards our opponents. Changing into canine form I switched lanes with Shiromaru as soon as Anko dropped a smoke bomb at us.

Good.

Suddenly, a small form tackled into me and I stumbled back. Just barely dodging Tomoe's claws I faced off against her. Growling, we circled each other. The smoke was still fresh in the air, the smell itching at my nose. Potent ones, then.

Even better.

"Cheh. You think you're so much better just because of those stupid red eyes. You don't know anything!" She scowled.

"You talk too much." I said, trying to imitate Shiromaru's lazy drawl. Not that Tomoe would know what he would sound like.

"I'll show you. Everyone knows canines are weaker at this stage! I'll beat you! And then Arata! And then everyone will recognize me!" Way to sound like a villainous Naruto. Still, where is this contempt coming from? If anything, people avoid Shiromaru because of his red eyes. Even then I- Oh shit!

Tomoe came at me, the image too blurred to make out a form and, just before I could dodge, kicked away at me.

"Yeah! You like that?" Tomoe cheered. "That's what you get when you mess with me! Wait what the heck?!" She exclaimed as soon as the smoke cleared.

Shiromaru and Mariko were off to the side, biting at each other and just missing each time, circling each other much like we did. What was most eye-catching though was Hayama in a tug-of-war with Anko entangled in a ridiculous amount of his ninja wire. The crowd broke out in noise again.

I smiled, poofed out of my canine form and ran over to them, Tomoe on my now non-existent tail. "Hayama! Now!" I shouted as I finished the hand signs.

As soon as my hands reached the wire, Hayama let go and jumped away.

"Lightning Release: Striking Bolt!" The lightning rushed through the wires, shocking the trapped Anko in it and dropping her to the ground. One down.

Looking over my shoulder I saw Hayama barely holding away Tomoe with his bokken swinging wildly. "Aaaaaah!" Oh my God.

' _Shiromaru!'_ I called inside my head, Four Legs already running.

' _Gotcha!'_ Suddenly, he jumped backwards, and Mariko, almost unconsciously chasing him, followed suit just in time for me to hit her with a brutal Hunter's Kick. Feeling my legs connect with her skull I knew she would be out for the rest of the match.

"And that's two." Shiromaru said.

"Let's go." I turned around and ran over to Hayama and Tomoe, Shiromaru at my side, shooting me a sidelong look of worry. I was getting tired. Three different jutsu in a row is taking a toll on me, and the fight's been barely a minute long.

We came to the scene of Tomoe just barely missing Hayama's face with her claw strikes. The bokken he was holding was chipped and scratched, little wood scraps littering the floor around them.

' _High, low.'_

' _Got it.'_

I jumped up again, this time whirling into a Tornado Kick while Shiromaru angled downwards and launched himself at Tomoe's legs. It felt like we were two rockets, slamming into her with all the power we could muster. Tomoe turned around just too late for her to block, and twisted awkwardly from the two different trajectories, landing on her face in the dirt.

"And that's three."

The crowd cheered. You'd think from such a small crowd of children it wouldn't be this goddamn loud. Oh wait, I still have my Four Legs on.

Tuning my chakra back down again, I dodged just in time from Hayama tackling into me. "We did it! We won! We actually did it!"

"What do you mean actually? We were always going to win." Yeah that's a lie. We barely made it out. If the fight lasted for just a little longer, or one of the many variables I counted on weren't there for the plan, this could have gone horribly wrong. None of us could really hold our own physically against Tomoe, and Anko, despite my earlier fight with her is pretty much an unknown.

Basically, we lucked out.

Hayama tackled me again, crushing me under his hug. "What are you, my mom?" He just grinned, the bastard.

' _Shut up, you like him.'_

' _You shut up.'_

' _Cheh. Never.'_

' _Well you're a bastard too then.'_

* * *

"Um, Tsume-nee? Kuromaru? What's all this?" The amount of chakra they were building up was just _gross_.

Tsume opened her eyes, the chakra dialing back down from 'What kind of nuke are you launching?' to 'just mildly explosive.' "Wha? Arata, don't interrupt my meditation."

I sat down next to her. "What are you guys even meditating for that needs that much chakra?"

She sighed. "Hiden. Now go away."

I weighed the pros and cons of prodding further. "Okay then." I stood up to leave.

"No wait. Stay." I slowly sat back down again. What am I? A house dog? No, don't answer that.

She gave me a once-over. "So how bad did ya lose?" She asked, eyeing my roughed up state. Dirt and grime on my clothes and in my hair, a ripped sleeve there. Cuts on my shins and a faint claw mark on my hand. Pretty sure there was still a twig in my shoe.

"I didn't _._ My opponent's just a sore loser, so I had to take a detour." After our fight (and subsequent celebration) we were gladly welcomed into the fold and introduced. Most of them seemed okay enough, and they absolutely adored Shiromaru, much to his annoyance, which naturally amused me greatly. So all in all I considered the whole thing a plus. Then Tomoe got all mad about losing and decided chasing me halfway through Konoha was a better idea than nursing what's left of her too large for her head pride. So fun times.

Kuromaru next to her started chuckling. "Detour. Right. A hasty detour."

I acted like I didn't hear him, which absolutely no one would believe. I still did it though.

"Well okay. Better question, why are you here? There's no training today."

"Can't I just visit my dearest Nee-chan every once in a while?"

She didn't miss a beat. "No. What do you want?"

"I ran out of chakra a little too fast for my liking. So, I need more."

She sighed and stood up, stretching her arms over her head. "Do some training, use more jutsu. Figure it out."

"I've _been_ doing that. It doesn't work." I pouted.

She paused for a little, staring into the open space of the training field. "Put the Four Legs up. Let's see what's wrong here."

I did as she asked, shaking some leaves from inside of my shirt out first. Damn that Tomoe. I feel like a bush.

Coming back to the feeling of heightened awareness the technique brings, I quickly burned through whatever chakra I gained since the fight.

"So what'd you get out of that?" I asked, sweaty and a tad shaky.

"Your balances are off. You're either using too much spiritual energy or too much physical. It flip-flops a lot."

"How can you tell?"

She turned up her nose haughtily. "I can smell chakra."

"You can _what_?" I've heard of the strangest things people say they've smelt over the years, from light pollution to ponytails, but never chakra. Smelling chakra should, by all accounts, be impossible, since by its very ambiguous and metaphysical nature is not something you can

smell. "Can you smell natural energy?"

"Natu what now?"

"Never mind. So what's the problem then?"

"Well, you have an unnatural amount of spiritual energy, but not much physical energy, which I think would make balancing pretty difficult for ya. The trick's just keeping consistent I guess."

I stood up, trying not to react to that. "And how do I practice that?"

She smiled. "No clue."

* * *

' _Ne, Shiromaru.'_ I asked, once mom and dad left. The house at night was calm and silent, light barely reaching my eyes from the lack of windows. The only clearly visible thing was Shiromaru's bright white fur reflecting off the moonlight.

' _Yeah?'_ I had my own room by now, one at the edge of the compound. It's a lot bigger than I'm used to, and I'm still trying to find a way to fill all the space. Shiromaru's giant dog bed takes up a good portion, but it still feels empty, as if something is missing.

' _Do you ever think about the other world?'_ He was quiet for a while, his eyes closed. Is he sleeping?

' _Sometimes. Why?'_ My eyes started scanning the room, searching. In the corner there were plenty of scrolls on jutsu hastily scribbled together by Tsume, along with my notes and classwork interspersed.

' _I… lost a lot. Family.. Friends.. Before, I sometimes wondered if they were better off without me. Yet now, I don't know.'_ Next to my bed there was a bear plushie, left behind for me by my parents for my third birthday. I never really knew what to do with it, so I just kept it next to wherever I slept.

' _Why do you say that?'_ I looked down to my sleeves, trying not to grimace. One day Shizuka just randomly grabbed me and headed to a tailor to get my own outfit made. Apparently that was important. It's a black kimono/gi combination thing, with secret pockets and spaces on the inside for any weapons. Not that it's meant to be subtle, mind, with a giant Inuzuka emblem on the back in a lighter gray. It also had accompanying standard ninja pants so it's not like it lacks for practicality. So far it's a little too big for me, so I've been using it as sleepwear.

' _I don't know. It was a dark period in my life. I'm over it now, or I thought I was. Now they are actually_ are _without me...and..'_

' _And you wonder what they're thinking?'_ I sighed. I'm doing that a lot lately, aren't I?

' _You know? Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like_ — _living in a world without this much fighting. Not having to get up to train everyday,'_ He opened his eyes. ' _Not having to constantly prove myself. It'd be nice. But I_ don't' _live in that world. I think instead of looking at what others think, try and focus on your situation. We're going to war after all. I'd like to make it through alive.'_

I huffed. ' _Sure. Why not.'_

' _What brought this on anyway?'_

' _My spiritual energy. I didn't think anything but my mind would follow me into this world. It just got me reflective, I guess.'_

' _Eh, I like it. I've been feeding off of it for a while now.'_ I jerked.

' _What? You can do that?'_ He looked at me like I was an idiot.

' _To an extent. How_ else _would you explain me?'_ Now that I think about, having a ninken capable of this level of speech when he's not even a year old _is_ ridiculous.

' _Fair.'_ I conceded.

' _..Tomoe. She's suspicious.'_ He said, his tone changing. ' _There's something going on around here we don't know about.'_ What she said during our fight was interesting, to say the least.

I flopped onto my bed. ' _I know. But it's not like we can do much about it now except train.'_

' _Ugh. Training.'_

' _You'll learn to like it eventually.'_

' _Yeah, when Tenten becomes Hokage.'_

I chuckled. ' _Well, you never know. She isn't born yet, so things could still change.'_

' _Cheh. Sure they will. Go to bed, loser.'_

' _Goodnight~'_

' _Night, bitch.'_

* * *

Yeah it's been way too long. At this pace this story would still be going a decade later. And no I'll never abandon this story. Well, unless I die, which means I'd need to find a way to write this series from beyond the grave, and that might take a while.

ANYWAYS. Sorry about the delay (not that I have a schedule..) (Stop ranting!) Finals and busy stuff. Fun. Going back to The Netherlands for vacation, so I should have more time to write. I'll see. Chapter was a little meh at stages, which I hope you can forgive. Anything else? Probably.

Have a good day!


	11. Chapter 11

**Tsume P.O.V.**

' _Honestly, can't this be over already? I feel like I'm getting stuck in these situations way too often recently.'_

' _I can see someone's been spending too much time around Arata lately.'_ I pointedly ignored the jab towards my whiny little brother.

' _You can say that again. Kid just keeps coming, asking for and more and more training. It's like he has nothing better to do. I'm starting to wonder if he even_ has _friends.'_

' _On the topic of friends..'_

"—ume! Tsume! Are you even listening?!" Haruo screamed, voice more strained every word he let out.

"No of course not. You were talking after all." I said, smirk unquestionably there.

The jeers dinged out among the rest of the crowd, jangling their booze bottles as appropriate.

"You should, considering it is the word of your soon to be fiancé." Nobuyuki helpfully pointed out.

"Wow, way to state the obvious." I muttered, downing the last of my bottle.

"A-As I was saying, I think it's bullshit that they still make you go to those meetings Tsume. It's not like they want you to even be there." Haruo added.

"They don't want Nobuyuki-senpai there either, and yet.." Shizuka countered, moving her still-broken leg on the other side of the branch she was sitting on. Nobuyuki looked set to argue.

"Guys, can we stop throwing sparks at each other? It interferes with my sake." Michiko intervened, somehow balancing her cup on a bunch of leaves at the end of her branch.

"Aight, better question then. The hell's up with Shizuka's mission?!" Riku spluttered.

Shizuka collapsed in on herself. "Ya gotta do a lot to make the Red Hot Habanero of all people scared of you." Riku's partner barked in agreement.

"I'd rather not talk about it." She really oughta do better on hiding her emotions, she's like an open book sometimes.

' _I wonder who that reminds me of.'_

' _Sssshhhh.'_

"I don't think Shizuka likes to be reminded of something that permanently put her off the field. For all we know, she was lucky." Michiko intervened again.

There was a moment of silence, and I tried not to think about the spaces in the trees purposefully left empty.

"Look, why don't we all just head home already. It's three, and I've got a date tomorrow."

"How many does that make now, Michiko? Twelve in the last month?" Nobuyuki, ever the wise man, had to comment.

"Pff. No, of course not." It was ten.

"Whatever man, I'm going. Got stuff to do." Susumo said, and with a swish of his tail, Body-Flickered out. The rest followed, if less hurried. Haruo tried to come over to me, but Michiko swiftly walked past him in obvious dismissal. Slightly offended, he and his partner Body-Flickered away.

"Thanks." I said. Michiko looked troubled, her way too pretty face contorting slightly.

"Are you sure you can't convince the elders to give up on that?" Boy I wish.

"Nah, my dad's conceded way too much ground for that."

She shook her head. "Politics."

"Tell me about it."

I waited just below Shizuka's branch. She deftly jumped off, landing on her hands and slowly lowering herself down to the ground so as not to hurt her leg.

"That's risky. Using chakra like that."

She smiled reassuringly at us. "I'll be fi-" Her chakra flared roughly, and her canines elongated for a second, before retreating back. "I'll be fine, Tsume-sama."

' _I don't know. That looked painful.'_

"Like hell you are. But it's alright. Nothing we can do about it for now."

Michiko frowned. "Can't say I like this new Tsume. What happened to the old 'do or die' attitude from before? Just a few years earlier you'd have stormed the meetings and demanded the herbs yourself."

"I grew up that's what. Learned that sometimes playing the waiting game is better than fucking it up for other people." I responded, with a little more animosity than required.

"Tsume." Kuromaru warned.

' _Yeah, yeah.'_ Silence reigned over the three of us.

' _Look, now you've made it awkward.'_

' _Me?!'_

' _Yes, you.'_

' _You decided to open that stupid mouth of yours.'_

' _She started it..'_

' _Ha. Future clan leader everybody.'_

"I'mma just.. Go now. I'll need the beauty sleep." She smiled in my direction.

I smiled back. "No, you don't."

Michiko jumped through the trees to the direction of her apartment, apparently not wanting to flicker through.

"You know, I thought that after the war, the animosity within the clan would die down a bit.." Shizuka said, after another long silence. Why am I still here?

I sighed. "Everyone's just tense. It'll blow over."

"Or boil over." She muttered, before vanishing as well.

' _...Let's just get some more booze. I'mma need it.'_

' _Agreed.'_

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

I raced through the trees, ducking and weaving through different branches and bushes to try to shake her off. Just before turning over a corner of a particularly spiky branch, a swift elbow almost caught my ankle. I picked up the speed even more, and promptly dashed my shoulder into the trunk of a tree. It's obvious she's playing with me. She could have ended this a long time ago. Thing is, she's faster and more agile than me. So why am I doing this?

Put plainly, I'm losing. And she likes winning too much to end this.

"Hahahahahahahaha!" Her maniacal laughing echoed through the trees. One that could strike fear into even the most dominant of apex predators. It was one of a ferocious beast on the hunt, settled in the knowledge that its prey could never truly escape, living out its last moment with the the angst of knowing their life is forfeit, and there was nothing they could do abou-

"Got ya!" Ayame cried, catching my midriff in midair into her arms, all giggles and sunshine and rainbows.

We crashed into a bush, cushioning the fall somewhat.

"Ah dammit." I tried not to pout, I really, really did. But put on the ropes by a child a quarter my age…

She smiled at me, a smile that only a child could produce. Full of innocence and bliss and... I really couldn't stay mad anymore.

"Fine, you win."

"Oh it's over already?" Shiromaru called out from the side, in the arms of an Akimichi girl in my class.

"I-I thought you did pretty well.." She said.

"Yeah! No one else my age survived as long as you did!" Ayame exclaimed, still on top of me for some reason. _Survived?_

I tried to subtly push her off. She didn't budge. The other two looked at us awkwardly, not sure how to respond.

I sighed, having flashbacks of me and my parents' reunion. In those early days they would stick to me like glue, and I just sort of learned to roll with it. They're better now, but I still get assaulted every now and then.

So, as per protocol, I just lifted myself up, with Ayame clinging to me. Like a scarf.

"Well, at least you're less heavy." She gave me a confused look. "Any of you know where Hayama went off to?"

Shiromaru inclined his head. "Over there, with Hyuurou and Tomoe, fiddling around in the sand or something."

We sauntered over to see what the big deal was.

"So whaddya got there?" I asked.

Hayama looked up from what he was doing. Tomoe next to him jumped away and glared at me.

"Well I was just telling them that you could use the sand here in so many interesting ways. For tracking right? Sand-nin are really good at this. They use sand bombs on a target they're pursuing. This way they'll always leave a trail." Hayama explained.

"But how would you differentiate between the sand on the ground and the one you threw?" I asked.

"That's the best part!" He exclaimed excitedly. "This over here is garnet sand. It's a lot redder than the usual mixed quartz sand that you usually find. A lot of times they'll use this one or other fine volcanic sand."

"Wow." And I really was impressed. Every single day these kids give me more reason to be impressed by them. Sometimes it's like they're really just mini-adults, just taking this form cause they're harder to hit.

"Ha. Hayama's so awesome! He's way smarter than you'll ever be! …..Dolt!" Tomoe just had to remark. I take it back. They're all blundering idiots who make me wonder how a society that relies on these terrors still functions under such sheer id-

"Hey that's not nice! You should be nicer to Arata." Ayame defended.

"Yeah! What she said."

"I don't care! Being nice is stupid. And it's true anyway. Arata's so dumb he once tripped over a log he was staring directly at."

"No I didn't! I distinctly remember you pushing me over that log, you dunderhead!"

She growled. "Did you just call me a dunderhead?!"

"Guys, maybe we shouldn't ar—" Hayama tried to intercede, still blushing from Tomoe's comment.

"I'll call you whatever I want you glorified purse dog!" She gasped. Okay I maaay have jumped through a few too many hoops of propriety there.

Also those shadows on the ground seem awfully big and— oh. There's a giant fist hovering over my head. How did I _not_ sense that?

"You can put them down now, Torune." Ayame nearly whispered in the silence. The Akimichi girl did as asked, and nonchalantly picked Shiromaru back up. Tomoe was sweating now.

"Why don't we all play a big game of ninja? I'll gather the rest." Ayame added.

Kouta, who had stayed uncharacteristically quiet till now, celebrated loudly. "Yatta!" Uh huh.

The group scattered, leaving me alone. Hayama went off with Kouta.

Damn it. I got myself all riled up again. By Tomoe, _again._ I'm a sad excuse for an adult.

I sat down next to a tree, moping, watching all the children coalesce into the clearing. There's Anko, riding Kouta's shoulders for some reason. Tomoe seems to be talking with Hayama again, Kami knows why. Blegh. I looked away.

"Weren't you supposed to rally the common folk?" I asked.

"Kouta can take care of that. He's really good at it too." Ayame emerged from the tree next to me. "Sometimes I think I'm just there to make sure no one beats each other up."

"What? Like me and Tomoe just now?" She hummed.

"Yup!" She exclaimed, then turned thoughtful. "Why do you two not like each other anyway?"

I picked up a stick and started poking the ground with it. "I don't really know. As far as I know, we never have. Tomoe's always been the favorite of the caretakers, and I'm decidedly not. I guess it started there. As to why it progressed, I have no idea."

"Really? Tomoe always talks about how everyone in her clan says she has to work hard to live up to you."

"Me? Why?" She shrugged.

"I don't know. But I kind of understand it." She picked up a stick too, and start playing with it. Inspired, I guess.

"How so?"

"I wanna be Clan Head someday, you know? It'd be awesome I think for everyone in the clan to finally listen to me. Right now, everyone thinks one of my older cousins is going to be Heir. Ever since dad died, I haven't even been looked at! It's not fair!" She flailed her stick around, as if she was hitting everyone in the clan on the head. "So my kaa-san has been training me a lot. But every time I do something awesome kaa-san's all like 'Asuma could already do this when he was half your age.' Or something stupid like that. It's not fair!" She shouted in anger.

"That doesn't make any sense. Most of the stuff I've seen you do is physically impossible for a two or three year old to do. Your kaa-san is lying to you." Her mom's putting a lot of pressure on her. I wonder why.

Her face lit up as if she was just told the secret to eternal youth. "Hah! Take that kaa-san!" She yelled triumphantly, then slumped, as if possessed. "I can't say that. Kaa-san's the only one in the clan that wants to train me. I can't be mad at her." She pouted.

"I guess we're in the same boat then. All the caretakers except one want nothing to do with me so only really my family wants to train me."

"Really? You're like me?!" She almost sparkled.

"Why do you sound so happy about that?"

"Well, when I tell everyone else about my clan they always get jealous and are all like 'you're so good at everything, why are you whining?' And then they ignore me."

"What aren't you good at then?"

"Well…" She started blushing. "Kaa-san's been trying to get me into using genjutsu, and.."

"..And what?" I could already see where this was going.

She stayed silent. "You know. I could help if you wanted me to. I mean, I'm fairly good at it. At least that's what my family thinks, anyway." And it was true, in a sense. For an Inuzuka, who barely ever bother with genjutsu, I'm light-years ahead of pretty much everyone in the clan, which is a little sad. I can't get much more into it though, because there's been no one to teach me.

"REALLY?!" Her eyes had stars.

"We're best friends now! You can't refuse me!" She ran up to me and tackle-hugged me. Gee, the ground sure is nice this time of day.

"Umm… alright…" I patted her head awkwardly. What do I even do with a creature like this? In just the last minute she's gone through _at least_ seven different emotions. If you told me she also went through the five stages of grief in the middle of all of that I might've even believed you.

"Outta the way dork!" I felt a kick to my head, and a grinning Tomoe raced past me, shortly followed by Hyuurou running after her.

"You thought you could get away from me!?"

I looked around. Everyone else was either hiding or running from each other. Ayame gasped. "They started without us! How rude!" Yeah that'll get em'.

"Well you can't really blame them. We were talking for a long time."

"Yeah I guess we did." We made eye contact, and somehow I don't think she felt too upset about it.

"I'm still gonna kick all their stupid butts!"

And then there's that.

* * *

Supposed to be a part 1, but got sick of staring at this chapter so decided to upload it anyway.

I have no excuses.

Have a nice day!


	12. Chapter 12

**Tsume P.O.V.**

Why is he here? No, honestly. Why is he here?

"Therefore voting yes on the new regulations for standard chuunin vests would harm our interests in not only…" Haimaru droned on, unending.

He's not even paying attention. He's reading a book on.. teaching? Why would Arata need to know anything about that?

"Now for the fifth topic on the floor," Dad started. "Regarding a reintroduction of the medicinal herbs contractor, Fairherbs', proposal. Representatives of Fairherbs have discreetly sent us a new offer, addressing the grievances we've had the last time." He passed out more papers. A few notable people didn't even pretend to look at them.

"I propose a referendum." Haimaru croaked out. It was starting to become his catch-phrase.

"Hisao-sama, I believe we have already gone over this several times. The deal is not worth risking straining relations between the Leaf and Sand." He added.

"Referendum in progress." Dad said, a stubborn tilt to his tone. I spotted Arata sneakily snatch a folder out of Ume's reach from the corner of my eye.

"As Haimaru-san has pointed out, the current situation between Leaf and Sand is precarious at best. I think we all remember the Gold Crisis from two years ago? Any trade between the two villages would start between merchants closer to the Kage than to the clans. And so far, besides what's put on the treaty, there hasn't been much of that."

Okay. This was it—now or never. "But isn't it more to our advantage that way? Even taking the Gold Crisis as precedence wouldn't it set a marker for the clans to initiate trade with foreign powers? It's a risky play, yes, but if it pays off it would not only expand our reach, but also our standing within the village and outside of it. People respect leaders, and that's exactly what we'd be if we only accept the offer." The hunger for respect and power among the village was far from lost for the people around here, after all. Baiting into that is an obvious play, but hopefully the correct one.

Glances were exchanged. I saw Arata's eyes widen, reading a specific section of the papers. Kaoru spoke up. "And Sand? What would they think? They might see it as independent action. A rift between Clan and Kage that they could exploit."

I opened my mouth to spe— "And what if they don't need to know?" _Arata_ said.

"Ah. Don't talk while the adults are talking please, child." Nobuyuki's partner, Seki, interrupted in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"No, his point might hold virtue. Continue, child." Sayuri interfered. Why would Sayuri of all people intervene? What is going on?

He paused, clearly irked at all the condescension, and continued. "From what's in these papers Fairherbs isn't even _in_ Suna. It's at some near-coastal city. Hell, it probably doesn't even _have_ shinobi involvement. Which means we could just have our civilian departments deal with them. Meaning we wouldn't have to go through the Hokage, meaning we wouldn't have a problem." What. The fuck.

"That is incredibly short-sighted child. If the Hokage—" Kaoru rebutted.

Only to be interrupted by Sayuri. "The Hokage has better things to do than investigate all of the clan's civilian dealings, even foreign ones. And even if he does he wouldn't risk getting involved if we're not dealing with Sand. It would police the clans even more than they already are, and that's something he'll try to avoid."

A short pause of silence pervaded the room.

Dad called for the vote. Four hands went up. Dad was about to call it when, to everyone's surprise, Kaoru lifted his hand.

"I trust Ume will make the necessary arrangements for the deal?" Dad said, with a slightly confused smile.

"Of course, Hisao-sama." Off to the side and back of her, Nobuyuki smiled. What?

"Now, onto the last topic on the floor…"

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

That worked? That actually worked? Does this mean Shizuka will..?

There was a strange pang in my gut.

...Figures that backwards Feudal Era politicians couldn't handle their own prejudice to get profits like this. I mean, I don't know much about herbal trade and all, but those prices? Ridiculous.

Tsume didn't look happy. That's never a good sign. That usually means harsher training sessions. And not in the helpful way.

I shuddered.

"..the last topic on the floor, regarding my daughter's nuptials—"

"HER _WHAT!?"_ I shouted. Everything in the world stopped. Tsume? Getting _married!?_ For what possible reason? I don't even know how to process this!

" _Quiet,_ child. This meeting is not your playground." Seki, damnable creature, demeaned.

How can—Tsume, of all people. She's the freaking Heir, for Kami's sake. How— _why_ didn't she tell me?!

Dad looked a little sheepish as he continued. Another surprise. "Her marriage venue still needs a location. Her fiancé Haruo has proposed having it at Spring's Meeting." The guy himself smiled smugly when mentioned.

What about Shin? Is she even thinking?!

"No rebuttal? Everyone agrees? Good. We will inform you of the date of the marriage at the next meeting. The meeting is adjourned. You may all go."

As everyone left I stayed on my pillow, still shocked. That state didn't last long, as Tsume barged up to me and came into my face.

"We need to talk. _Now._ "

She Body-Flickered with me in tow to some random part of the Inuzuka forest.

"Are you a _fucking idiot!?"_ Wow. _That_ is your starter.

" _I'm_ an idiot? That Haruo bitch? Really!? Even as a political marriage I've seen the guy around and I wouldn't trust him to hold a cup of frozen water and not have him spill it over. How the _fuck_ would you handle him as a husband?!"

She looked enraged. "You think I had any fucking choice!?"

"Of course! You're Inuzuka Tsume of all people! Hell, you're one of the strongest people in the village, not to even talk about the clan!"

She visibly tried to collect herself. "The situation in the clan is delicate right now. Too many alliances are shifting, and the Head is losing power. This is just another compromise. We'll bounce back, and when I'm Head we'll cancel the marriage."

"That's a lot of BS." I looked away.

"Don't I fuckin' know it." She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"And what about Shin?"

She glared at me. "You don't get to talk about Shin."

"What do you mean I can't talk about Shin? He knows ri—"

"You don't get to talk about him. Why? Cause you don't know _shit_. What the hell was that in the Monthly anyway? You aren't even supposed to be there, let alone talk."

I crossed my arms. "I fixed the situation for you didn't I? And now Shizuka will get her treatment."

"Yeah, but at what cost?"

I made an effort to keep my mouth closed. "So you're one of those people now? Just abandoning everyone around you for power? I see."

Her eyes went wide. "Are you actually insane. You can't even remember that it was me who pushed for the deal in the first place!? Actions have consequences, Arata. And what you did had major ones."

"What consequences? The deal went through."

She punched the tree next to her. In _half_. "Political ones. Sayuri didn't aid you out of the goodness of her heart, trust me on that. No, she conniving bitch who makes deals with whoever she wants just to get more power. And from what I can guess, it was with Nobuyuki. Hell, now that I'm looking back on it, it was probably a ploy to get us to butt heads publicly, undermining even more of our authority. And you fell for it."

I retreated away from her. "You're paranoid."

"And you're dumb. You don't understand, and that's why I didn't want you there. What are we gonna do now, huh? Now that she's in line with Nobuyuki _anything_ could happen. Another "rebalancing" of votes? Access to Hiden? Electing a new Head? They could get away with _assassination._ "

And who would be the first in line..

I trembled. "I'm sorry, okay?"

Her demeanor softened a bit. She closed her eyes. "Just don't interfere again, alright?"

I nodded, a little scared. She Body-Flickered away.

Fuck.

* * *

"Mmmm." She murmured, her eyes closed, face downcast.

"MMMmm." She murmured, again, face hopeful.

"mmmmmmmm." She murmured, once more, face constipated.

"Alright what's bothering you?" I asked her.

Ayame opened her eyes angrily. Ok. "This meditating isn't working!"

"It's barely been an hour. Meditation is supposed to help with your focus and concentration, which you can only get if you _focus and concentrate._ " I repeated, for the fourth time.

She stood up. "I can concentrate just fine! See I'm doing it right now!"

She scrunched up her face and stared at one of the last falling autumn leaves. I sighed.

It's been a few months since that Monthly and things have.. calmed down is the better word for it.

Tsume still trains me, when she can, but it's become less and less of a thing recently, what with her preparations for marriage and becoming more involved in the clan. School's fine, if you can call it that. Thanks to Ayame tensions with the other children have settled somewhat, though Hayama's been hanging around me less and less.

Which I can't say I blame him for. It's not like he gives me weird looks every time we hang out, or tries to inch away, or hangs out with Tomoe more than me and..

"What's wrong? You look so sad." Ayame said.

I blinked out. "Umm. I'm fine. Just thinking." I shook my head. " Ayame, I'm sorry but I really don't know why you're struggling with genjutsu so much. You do fine with iryo-ninjutsu, and even if they're fairly different it's still intricate chakra manipulation."

Her head drooped. "Maybe it's time for a new approach."

"Like what?" She asked, still dejected.

"Mmmm. What do you think about when you're performing jutsu? For example, fire transformation."

She jumped up. "When I do fire I make things burn. So I think about making things burn, and then they do. Watch this!"

She formed some hand signs.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" Three basketball sized fireballs fled from her mouth and into the sky.

"Umm alright." There are so many things wrong with what just happened, but I don't have the patience to process it. "All right. I can work with that. So what do you think about when doing genjutsu?"

Her face contorted in thought. "I dunno. Space wiggly thingies maybe? Scary stuff? Confusion! That's it!" I tried really hard not to facepalm.

"Your perception of genjutsu is all wrong. Genjutsu is all about making an impression on another person. That means that your reality, or more importantly the way you want someone else to view that reality has to be transformed into a chakra probe, which then enters their system, which, if done well enough, creates an illusion advantageous to your situation."

She blinked once. "So confusion then?" My face already anticipated the slap. I kept my arm down by sheer force of will.

"You know what? Yes. What do you think happens when someone's confused?"

She tilted her head from side to side. "They get all wobbly and then their thoughts don't make sense. Like that one time I ran into a tree trunk and I thought down was up so I jumped to walk."

"Yes, exactly. Here, give me a second." I rummaged through my pack a little, and pulled out a book. "This is a book about a different school of genjutsu. So far I've been trying to teach you genjutsu from the Demonic Illusion series, which are usually more straightforward and tangible, therefore making it easier for newcomers to learn. But that might have been the wrong approach. The one I'm about to teach you," I opened the book in front of her for her to see. "Is from the Bestial Illusion series. It's called Bestial Illusion: Doddering Haze. Essentially confusion." I pointed out the hand signs and focus diagrams to her. "What makes Bestial Illusions different from Demonic ones is that they target the feral mind, and not the civilized one. It edges or dulls base emotion and instinct, and is usually therefore harder, since most ninja aren't really very in sync with those."

I very obviously got this from the Inuzuka library. Unsurprisingly, it hasn't been checked out in over two decades.

"So, try this. See how it goes." She took the book, and stared at it for a while. I'm not really sure if she'll be able to get it from me just explaining that bit to really know how this works.

"Alright.." She slowly went through the hand signs. "Bestial Illusion: Doddering Haze."

..What. In the— Who's president?! How many times? I can't— Water is a good resource to beat the cold! Where did—

"Kai!"

..Wow.

I snapped out of it, and a bashful looking Ayame met her gaze with me. "I knew you were talented, so I shouldn't really be surprised. But wow."

"It worked?" I nodded. "It worked! YES! Hah! Take that kaa-san! I so too can do genjutsu!" Her victory dance was, frankly, a little disturbing. There was a lot of headshaking.

"Ready to learn some more?"

Her smile was all the answer I needed.

* * *

 **?** **P.O.V.**

"Why did you come back?!"

I disabled the seals on their bodies. "I couldn't leave you guys here! You know they're only keeping you alive to steal your secrets. I can't just go back, knowing they'll torture you until you die of dehydration or something."

I cut loose their chains. "I have all your weapons for you. Grab them and we'll go."

"This is a mistake. They won't take kindly to their base being stormed." Honestly, Ogai shouldn't always complain so much. It'd make him much easier to deal with.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Now let's go."

"I honestly don't know why you guys are so upset. I for one don't favor the iron bar treatment too much." Taguchi joked. I chuckled.

A distant alarm bell rang through the prisons. "We have to hurry."

"Sector B! Sector B!" Sure took them a while to notice the bodies.

"They're here already! What do we do?"

I smirked. "We go through them, obviously."

And with the flash of a shining white blade the first heads rolled.

* * *

Do y'all like the description? Or should I change it? Cause I've been thinking about changing it for a while. Also with that, feel free to DM and/or review for any questions, comments, critiques etc.


	13. Chapter 13

It was too loud. The sound of clashing claws just managed to eclipse the loud jeers of a raucous audience. It wasn't a pleasant sound. I was sparring again, against a kid just slightly older than me. Bigger too. I think his name was Kyo? I don't remember.

 _Ramsnaketiger-_ "Clone Jutsu." I charged from the left just as three clones took the other three angles. He threw down a rudimentary smoke bomb. Self made? Maybe poisonous? Dodging it then.

I jumped out of the way and circled him, my clones repeating the action. He likely couldn't see inside his own smoke. I started another sequence of hand signs.

"Bestial Illusion: Emblematic Pride." I chanted. He screeched.

"Passing Fang!" The smoke cloud dispersed, and Kyo came out, twirling so rapidly he shredded the ground under him. That'll take a lot of his chakra. Good.

He charged against one of my clones, and went straight through, hitting the ground and running out of momentum.

"Ha! Take that! Stupid Arata! Take that!" He said, as he stood up, facing the wrong direction.

I calmly walked up behind him.

And elbowed him in the head. He fell face first into the ground.

With one foot on his back, I held a kunai to his neck.

"Winner. Arata." A round of boos greeted Nobuyuki's announcement. I took my foot off of him.

Mmmm. Not good enough. He was practically static through the whole thing. I need someone better to test my skills against. Torune's out shopping I think, Ayame's training with her mom, Hayama's with Tomoe probably. I didn't see either of them today at our spot, so most likely. Mmm. Maybe Hyuurou? Nah. I'd have to deal with Anko and I'm not really feeling like it today.

"Hey! Come back cheater!" I turned around. What?

"Run that by me again?" Kyo looked really angry. Though it was hard to take him seriously when he still hadn't wiped the dirt from his forehead.

"You used genjutsu on me just now! That's not fair!" The crowd behind him riled up at that.

"Yeah! You can't do that! That's against the rules!" Random Inuzuka #4 yelled.

More noise, all in agreement. Ah, here we go again.

Nobuyuki stepped up. "Well Arata, while technically you didn't break any rules, it is a massive breach in decorum to use such techniques in an honorable Inuzuka spar."

"Yeah! What he said." Other random Inuzuka #6 said.

"As such, I do think it appropriate to enact a punishment. You will be cleaning out the kennels for the next hour."

My hands clenched. "I'm sorry, I can't really follow what you just said. Can you baby voice it for me like you always do?"

Nobuyuki sneered. "You understand me just fine, Arata. Now get moving, or I will add to the punishment."

I clicked my tongue, and walked over to the indoor part of the kennels.

Picking up a shovel and trash can, I felt three presences behind me failing at chakra suppression.

I dodged the shuriken coming for my side. "Really? This again? You couldn't have—Is that _shit_ on your shuriken?" Aww some of it got on my sandals. That's disgusting.

"Go on then. Clean it up!" One of them said.

Ok. That's it. "Get the fuck out of here before I rip off your limbs from your body and use them to strangle your friends." I flared my chakra, and my canines elongated.

That seems to have spooked them. "Yeah right! I'll just get Nobuyuki to kick your ass later then!" They ran away.

Shit. Literally.

I sighed, and got to work. A while later a small white figure with red eyes approached the kennel doors.

"What'd you do to end up here again?" Shiromaru asked.

"Beat some kid in a spar. Hurt his pride." ' _Nobuyuki.'_

He calmly walked up and on me to lay on my head. ' _Ah. Figures.'_

' _What took you so long to get back here?'_

' _Almost got caught at the end. Scent masking against Inuzuka is no easy task you know.'_

' _Yeah. Thanks by the way.'_

' _Whatever. I'll just tell you what I learned.'_ He cleared his throat, which, is really unnecessary. ' _So Nobuyuki is almost definitely training Tomoe in secret. They've already gotten to learning the Gatenga.'_

' _Wow alright. But why?'_

' _Hell if I know. Nobuyuki isn't pleased with her progress, though. Keeps getting angry every five minutes. It's kind of unsettling how quickly his mood swings back again.'_

' _And how does Tomoe feel about it?'_

' _She isn't happy with the lashings, but she likes the attention. Completely brainwashed, poor thing.'_

"You couldn't have opened with that?!" Tomoe's being lashed? Like with a whip?! Granted beating a child obviously isn't uncommon around these parts, but lashings are definitely crossing a line. "With what? How often?"

"Can we not talk about this out loud? Someone might hear us." ' _Seriously. He uses a practice whip. Not one of his actual combat whips. I'd think we'd notice if he did.'_

' _Still, if anyone in the clan found out, his position as Head Caretaker would—'_

Citrus. The smell wasn't overly strong, but it was noticeable. The smell was coated somewhat by the scent of dog, but then, everyone's here did.

' _I don't think anyone would do anything but frown at him. At this point he's too ingrained into the clan for anyone to tell him how to do his job.'_ Shiromaru continued on, not catching my break in thoughts.

I dropped my dung shovel and grabbed my pack. ' _Shiro, we have to go.'_

' _Why? You're not even halfway finished yet.'_

' _Look, I just need—'_

"Arata." My thoughts slowed to a crawl.

"..Shizuka." She sat on one of the larger tree branches, her bad leg lightly swinging off of it.

"You've been avoiding me." She said, softly.

I couldn't look her in the eyes. "It's been months. And you still haven't said a word to me."

' _Shiro, help me to..'_ The line was dead. The little.. He ran off!

"I thought at first you just needed your space. After all, the sight of me wasn't exactly pretty. Then you stopped sleeping in the kennels at all. Nobuyuki almost had to force you to show up some days. And you know there's something wrong when he notices your absence." She tried laughing. It didn't work.

I backed up against a wall, closing my eyes. I heard her drop down from the trees. "Then Shiromaru came up to me, started talking about how you've been spending your time in the Training Fields with the other kids from the Academy, and less and less with him. And then Tsume-sama started saying the same things. And that really worried me. I mean, this wasn't really about space anymore. You're actively avoiding people."

My teeth pressed together. Stronger and stronger urges to flee kept coming to me, but I still stood there. With my eyes closed. Like an idiot.

"So that, I mean whatever's eating you up inside, or. Or whatever thing we did we could, we could still talk about it." I opened my mouth, and closed it again.

How could I tell her? That I wasn't meant to be here in the first place? That I couldn't see what my existence did for Tsume's political career?

The kennels aren't a good spot for me. How could it be? After all, it's the same place Shizuka was getting bullied by her coworkers at for associating with me. The same place where Nobuyuki uses his position against me, and then takes it out on my family. The same place where not even an hour ago actual shit was flinged at me. The same place that reminded me every second I was there that my existence could trigger some random butterfly effect which makes it so that in the third _fucking World War_ everyone could just up and die because of _one_ change I made. And I don't even want to think about what would happen if they were in a different place from canon at the time of the kyuubi attack. So many variables I can't control, it's a wonder I'm still sane.

"Arata, please just talk to me. I can't understand what you're going through if you don't tell me."

The sound of birds chirping started to die down, it was getting later and later. She closed the distance.

"I.." Fuck. Why is this so hard! "I'm sorry."

She hugged me, and squeezed.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what, Arata? Why I'm still here, or why you're still here? I chose to be here. I chose to be your caretaker. Not because of any special reason. I just saw you and.. I just chose to. And I want to stick with it. So. So you're gonna have to give me a little more trust right now. Okay?" Her voice quivered.

Something in me cut loose. Was it still safe? To tell her? Anything? Everything? Just the relevant parts?

I breathed out. If I'm going to tell her, I have to give her everything. That's the only way.

"This is gonna sound crazy, but I want you to wait until I finished talking all the way, because it's a lot." She pulled back a little to look me in the eyes.

"Of course."

I fought hard to keep eye-contact. "About six and a half years ago, I died." She already opened her mouth, but remembered her promise. "But then I woke up. And I found myself as an Inuzuka. See, before that I was someone different. Not a ninja, not from this country, or even this dimension. I was born and raised in places that had no chakra, but had way more technology to compensate. Like the internet. And planes and cars and.." I could tell I lost her. "Anyway, I spent 18 long years there, until, somehow, I died and someway, ended up here. The thing is, I knew this world already. See back on my world there was this manga that ran for a good while about a land called the Elemental Nations, where an underdog ninja would fight to prove himself worthy of the title of Hokage. Long story short, there's a lot of stuff that happens, but eventually he does become Hokage. But the events that led up to it weren't exactly fun. One of those events, is the Third Great Ninja War." Her eyes widened. "So far this world is exactly like portrayed in the manga. Every single detail, besides my existence, has been the same. The founding of Konoha, the First and Second's death. The First and Second War. The Sannin versus Hanzo. Sand's betrayal. All of that is word for word. Well that last part wasn't very clear in the manga, but there was a whole poisons thing and they did fight in some war or another. And I'm rambling. Point is, the Third War is coming soon. Very soon, and I don't know what to do about it."

I removed myself from her and sat on the ground, giving her some time to process all of that.

Her eyes flickered as she silently worked through it. Then, she laughed. Hysterically.

"What's so funny?" I crossed my arms indignantly.

She wiped away a tear. "You know in hindsight it was so obvious. Advanced communication, comprehension, and abstract thought. Heck, even critical thinking. It was all there the whole time." She realigned herself. "But, ignoring the whole "knowing the future" thing, that doesn't really answer why you've been avoiding us."

I hesitated. "You know what the Butterfly effect is right?" She shook her head. "Right. Well, people in my world were very interested in random theories about the world and stuff. Oversimplified, it means that any small change can lead to a much, much larger change in the future. 'When a butterfly flaps its wings, much later, far farther, a hurricane ravages.' So, if say, I stop someone practicing their shuriken throwing, and they miss during a fight, and then all of a sudden the _Fourth Hokage's gone._ Well that's on me isn't it?"

She stayed quiet while her jaw moved. "That's interesting. But also complete bullshit." Wha? "Before you try to refute. What's to say that in that original story you didn't exist? Maybe you did, but you were an unimportant background character or something. What if that world isn't even the same one you're living in right now? It's also possible that your presence wouldn't change anything at all, or might even have a positive effect. Have you thought of that?"

"I..yes but.." My gaze shifted down.

"But nothing." Her eyes widened. "Arata. Oh kami. Arata."

"What?"

"My injury isn't your fault."

It was… so so simple. And yet. And yet I felt such a resistance to those words I could barely process them at all.

She put her hands back on my shoulders. "I chose to go out. And I would have done it either way, if not earlier if you weren't there. Maybe I wouldn't have come back at all if it weren't for you."

"Look. No matter what happens, everyone's choices are their own. Yes, you could influence someone one way or the other, but that doesn't mean they didn't have a choice. Or that you're somehow responsible for the choices they did or didn't make. Removing yourself from the equation really doesn't help anything. I'm alive. And right now, that's all that should matter to you."

I met her eyes, and suddenly mine were wet. She didn't initiate the hug this time.

After a while, she pulled away. "Then again, that doesn't mean your future knowledge can't help either. We just gotta be careful about it."

I nodded slowly. "So what are we gonna do then?"

"I think I have an idea."

* * *

"So where are we going again?" I asked. We were tree hopping through a forested part on the other side of Konoha. We had to stop every now and then when her chakra coils overcharged, but it didn't seem to hurt her that much anymore. I couldn't stop myself feeling a little guilty still, every time she almost fell out.

Haah. Deep breaths.

"Ugh. Youth nowadays, so impatient." She said with a smirk.

"You know I'm older than you, right?"

"Yeah right." She staggered a bit. I stopped on the next branch.

"Umm yeah? How old are you? Like 21? 22?"

She started going again. I joined her. "Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her age?"

"Yes? And?"

"I sure hope not everyone on your world is that mean to chivalry-san."

"Who?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Pfft. Oka—" HOLY SHIT. That is a LOT of chakra. How does a being with that much chakra even exist? It's easily more than anyone I've ever met before. Like, combined probably. I'm surprised I didn't notice earlier.

"You just sensed it didn't you?" I nodded. "Good, we're almost there then."

About half a minute later we came upon some fencing with the sign "Training ground 64: Proceed with Caution" on it. Shizuka hopped the fence, acting as if it wasn't even there in the first place.

Following her we came upon a clearing with several people there. Several very familiar people.

I tried to make alarmed eye-contact with her. Unfortunately, she wasn't looking.

I mean, really! That giant chakra signature? Was Uzumaki- _freakin_ -Kushina! With Namikaze Minato right next to her! That's not even it either! Uchiha Mikoto was on the other side. Opposed to her, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio were hunched over some board game.

And those were just the ones I recognized! A Hyuuga with short hair (and isn't that a rarity) was sitting next to a tall serious-looking man with a scowl on his face.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late." Shizuka introduced.

Kushina stood up abruptly. "It's all fine, we really didn't notice. I mean, we all just got here just now too you know! Right Mikoto? Right?"

Mikoto sighed. "Would you please sit down, Kushina? You're embarrassing yourself."

She hurriedly plopped herself back down again. "Right. So who's the squirt? And why's he staring at me like that?"

"Oh this is Arata. He's a chakra sensor." I still can't get over it. I mean, retrospectively I guess it makes sense? She's a full-blooded Uzumaki, with all of the Kyuubi inside. She likely has more chakra than anyone else on the planet.

She jumped up again. "Oh he can sense my greatness then? Good! The name's Uzumaki Kushina, squirt! Future Hokage! And don't you forget it-ttebane!" Yup. That's her alright. The resemblance is actually unnerving.

"Better question, why is he here? This won't exactly be age-appropriate." Inoichi asked. Uuuuhhhhhh.

Shizuka had a feral grin on her face. "To keep score, of course. I don't trust any of you anymore after last time."

"Nah, I did that shit right. You were just too piss-drunk to notice." The Hyuuga refuted.

"Speaking of.. Minato-kun, if you'll do the honors.." Mikoto said.

"Of course." With the most serene smile on his face, he took out a scroll from his pocket, and unsealed the insides.

Which was, of course, shit tons of alcohol. A loud cheer came from every person in the field.

Shizuka grabbed my arm, keeping me from fleeing. "Alright, Arata, so here's the deal.."

* * *

"Never again!" I shouted, running away as fast as possible. It was well past midnight, and I could still hear them jeering.

"C'mon Arata, it wasn't that bad." Shizuka tried to plead.

"Yes, yes it was! Did you not notice them using me as a bat!?" They started off tame sure, but drinking game after drinking game came and went. And they didn't stop. THEY DIDN'T STOP!

"Come on! They put you down afterwards!" She pleaded. I ran faster.

"Yeah! So they could replace me with the ball!"

* * *

After about twenty minutes of running I took a break and lay down on a comfortable looking bush. About a minute later, Shizuka landed next to me and plopped herself down next to me.

The stars look nice this time of day. There's a lot less pollution in this world. It makes nighttime more tolerable.

"So? Which ones?"

"Most of them play a role. Most of them die."

"I thought so." She jumped back up again. "Alright. Time to plan."

* * *

"Ne, Torune, do you think red's better than green?" Ayame whispered. In the big mess hall, it was one among many.

"I think green has its merits. And red does too." The Akimichi girl responded evenly, feeding a piece of jerk chicken to a certain white dog in her arms.

"Can you guys pay attention? This could be important." I reprimanded.

The entire school was here, after all. The principal had been speaking for a long time, and as usual, no one was listening.

"Because of this fortunate time, the teachers' repertoire has been unchanged for the last three years, and changes have been slow to implement. After all.."

"But red's like.. better though." Ayame whined.

"Yes, but green is leaves. And leaves is like our village." Torune countered.

"Guys!"

"I think it is time to get to the matter at hand, Eisuke-sensei." Chizuru-sensei said, voice very much louder. She stepped forward.

"Last week a town on the border of the Kawa-Tsuchi border was massacred. Every man, woman, and child was hung by their entrails to the trees. Our Daimyo has responded accordingly, and has sent ninja there to protect our allies. Three days ago, a similar massacre happened on the farms of Kusa, just fifty kilometers from our own border. They were hung up in the same way. So far, the attackers haven't been shy of announcing who they are. Then, two days ago Iwa launched an attack on our border. In the battle, more than sixty of our own laid down their lives to protect konoha. Tsuchi no Kuni has challenged us." The hall was dead silent.

"Now, today, the Third Hokage along with the Daimyo have officially declared war on the Land of Earth."

And so, it begins.

* * *

Yeah I have no idea how this chapter will be received. I also have waaaay too many characters that aren't important till waaaay later. I'll have to do something about that..


	14. Chapter 14

"This means that the appropriate war time measures in regards to your education must be followed. However, because of the abrupt nature of the declaration, some plans will have to be changed. The council has come together and devised a four month training program for a select amount of students to undergo. If they manage to successfully complete the program, they will be exempt from the graduation test, and evaluated for potential assignment to a Jounin-sensei."

The nervous energy was palpable, but no one dared to speak.

"The lists are posted at the exit. You are dismissed." Chizuru-sensei stepped out, and the rest of the faculty followed.

As soon as they left, pandemonium erupted.

Voices shouted over each other. Children rushing to the exit, others standing completely still, still others running to their friends.

Fear, excitement, anger, sadness. Somehow all of it was there.

"Torune! Isn't this great?! We get to graduate early!" Ayame rushed back into the hall. When did she leave?

"I'm on the list?" She asked.

"Yes! And Arata too! Isn't it great?!" She jumped on top of Torune, scaring Shiromaru out of her arms.

"No. No! Not great!" I crossed my arms into an X.

"What's wrong with graduating earlier?" Torune asked, pulling out some chips from.. who knows where.

"Graduating earlier means getting sent out earlier. Into a _war._ "

"I don't get it."

Right. Shinobi children. Feudal times, feudal times. "Nevermind."

"Oh! Is this about that Hunt thing? That's soon right?" She said, not breaking eye contact as she shoved more and more chips into her mouth.

Shiromaru climbed on top of my head. "How do you know about that?" To be honest, I almost completely forgot about it.

"Tomoe won't stop talking about it. Hunt this, hunt that. I'm surprised you haven't heard her ranting." Ayame complained, dismounting from Torune.

"Well, we don't exactly enjoy each other's company."

"Right. Well, meet you guys later! I gotta go pack." Ayame started leaving.

"Wait, when do we leave?"

"Tomorrow!"

* * *

"You'll make it back in time. But you'll only have about a day of rest. Think you can handle it?" Tsume asked. She was standing outside my room, watching me pack. The Academy sent over a list of what I'd need. Also another list of things I wasn't allowed to bring. Strangely enough, I couldn't bring any sort of weapons.

"I mean, the Hunt's never been my main priority. I think surviving through it is enough for me." Would I really need this many socks? I barely even use socks. I'll pack them anyway.

"And you don't care about your markings?"

"Markings are just paint, in the end." Then again, I'm only gonna be wearing them when I go to sleep. Would I even get the time to put them on?

"And Tomoe?" Maybe I could use them as gloves. I doubt wherever they're taking us is going to be a sanitary place.

"I'll handle Tomoe just fine." She sneered.

"Not likely. I already have people on the case." If I'm gonna use them as gloves, is there even a point in matching them?

"Shiromaru told you?" I swear. That damn dog can't learn to keep his mouth shut.

"Not likely to get anything from you anymore." I was quiet.

I rearranged my socks again.

"My marriage ceremony is next month." I stopped. Took a deep breath. Apparently arranged marriages are fairly common in shinobi circles. Since breeding actually matters here, smushing your Heir together with a suitable mate is common sense. Dad was the exception, since he was the spare. Just wish Shizuka would've told me that earlier. Somehow.

"I wish you all the best." I continued with my socks. She stayed for a while, not saying anything, and then left.

A few moments later Shizuka came to my door. "Hey. I heard you're leaving?"

"Yeah. Training camp. For the war and all." She walked into the room and turned on the privacy seals, closing the door behind her.

"Why are you folding socks? What would you even use them for?" I dropped them from my hands.

"Honestly? I don't know."

"Right. Back to important things." She sat herself down next to me. "Hatake Sakumo has been found dead in his home last night."

Yeah, there was nothing we could do about that. There were entire campaigns working against him there. Banners to mock-executions to riots. Arrests had to be made. People got hurt in the hate.

Still. "That was quick." It's been a day and change. If that.

"So it was planned then. Must have wanted the scapegoating to be quick and done with. Focus everyone on the war effort faster." I grimaced.

"Did you think it was the noble thing to do?" She asked.

"Suicide is never noble." I answered firmly. I think she got the message.

"Perhaps. Anyway, Minato tells us Kakashi's been mute since yesterday. He fears he might crawl up inside of himself forever if he leaves him alone. He's been thinking about signing up for being a Jounin-sensei. Help him form new bonds with kids his age."

"Good. Encourage him on that, if you can. I don't want to leave things up to chance."

She sighed. "There's not much we can do about anything right now, Arata. Until we get into a better position keeping tabs on things we're not supposed to could end us up in some serious trouble."

 _Ne._ "You're right. I'll just focus on my training for now, I guess.

* * *

 **Shizuka P.O.V.**

"Because you've totally been neglecting that right?" I asked, half-teasing. He still hasn't stopped his mad dash for more strength. Although lately he's been hitting the books more often. Genjutsu, then sealing, then tactics, then jutsu creation. Probably more. It's hard to keep track.

"Have you found the solution to your energy imbalance?" Another hint to his reincarnation that I should have recognized. The amount of spiritual energy he has is closer to an adult Chuunin rather than a 6 year old academy student.

Reincarnation. Knowledge of the future. I mean _really_. It's still hard to believe, even if the evidence was just brutally shoved in my face just last night.

His eyes wandered around the room. "I think? Most of the issue will get fixed if I just get more physical energy. But it's not like more spiritual energy is too much of a hindrance. It helps my genjutsu."

To be honest I didn't even know we even _had_ clan genjutsu. Not that it would have helped. I tried some myself in my genin days. Failed to even conjure up a flower. Gave myself a nasty headache too. So not worth it. "Fair."

I followed his eyes over to where he was looking. His coming-of-age attire? "Say, what does your world's militia even wear? They'd have to have some recognizable distinction, right?" I've been trying to ask more about his world, subtly prod here and there. It's just got me so curious! An entire civilization that doesn't even have chakra? How are they even alive?!

He picked up his black gi (from the floor!) and shoved it in his pack. "They wear camouflage outfits to blend in with the dirt and the sand and the trees. Don't really know what it's made out of. Speaking of, why do I even need the kimono thing anyway? Can't I just wear something better? That actually, you know, protects me?"

I gasped. "How could you?! It's tradition! I even picked that out for you myself! And it's not a kimono! It's a shinobi gi!" I crossed my arms. It cost good money too! "You're so ungrateful." He flinched. Woops.

"I'm sor-sorry, I guess? I just don't understand why I can only wear one outfit until I become a chuunin."

"Its TRA-DI-TION! Plus, it makes you more recognizable and memorable as an individual, which helps a lot when you're working with a lot of different people at the same time." I huffed. "Honestly Arata, It's not that big of a deal. Just wear it when you get the headband, okay?"

He pouted. Just a little. "Okay. Fine."

An odd knock sounded from the door. I disabled the privacy seal.

"Who's there!" Oh woops. Was that too aggressive? Oh yep, Arata's looking at me weirdly.

"Oh, it's Shiromaru." Arata said, opening the door for him. Sure enough, he was at the other end of the door. "Did you just knock with your head?"

Shiromaru walked in. "How else would I knock? With my tail?" He sat down on his bed. "Anyways. You're leaving later today right?"

"Uh yeah?"

"Right then. Raff!" No joke. He didn't bark. He just actually said the word 'raff.' I am beyond bewildered.

Just then two chakra signals registered on the other side of the hallway.

"Happy early birthday!" Hisao-sama and Yuuna-sama came in through the door with a large decorated bag. They both had to carry it through the door, it was so big.

"What is even in there?" Arata asked.

"Duuh. Chitose-ame.* What else?"

"That much?! Did you rob all the stores in Konoha?!"

"No, we asked nicely." Hisao-sama said. I don't wanna know.

"You know I'm not a girl right? And not even seven yet?" Arata gave the door longing looks.

"But you're gonna be leaving so soon and we're not even gonna be able to see you till the _end_ and then your birthday will have happened already." Yuuna-sama said, trying to hide an overly fanciful kimono behind her back.

"How am I supposed to even pack all this? I can't eat it all."

They looked genuinely perplexed. Somehow all the pushback on their budget proposals made sense now. "Huh. Didn't think about that." Hisao-sama said.

"Hey Shizuka. Shouldn't you be preparing food for next week in the kitchens right about now?" Hisao-sama suddenly asked me. Oh shit. Right.

"Uuuh." Wow. Smart response. A-1. 10 out of 10. "I'll just.. Go then."

I quickly fled the room, closing the door behind me.

Arata's voice came in through the door. They didn't engage the privacy seal? "That was not subtle at all."

Yuuna-sama responded, but just before I could hear the sound cut out. Damn.

I started walking out of the Head's House, mentally planning the rest of my day.

 _I really hope Mana's not leading chef today. I really can't put up with her nagging today-FUCK!_

A strong pain in my back and head sent me tumbling to the ground.

I hope that didn't make too big a sound. Don't wanna stir anybody. Kami I can't move my leg. I swear if I find that little fucker again I will strangle him with his _teeth!_ SOMEHOW!

* * *

"Good luck yea? Don't stand out too much." Shiromaru said.

"Who are you talking to again?" Arata barely squeezed out of the death grip Hisao-sama and Yuuna-sama had on him.

Tsume shook him out not long after, much to his relief. "Tch. Make sure you come back in one piece. Can't have any otouto of mine missing his Hunt." Something passed between the two's eyes, though I couldn't tell what.

"Alright. I really gotta go now. They're leaving me behind." Oh and yup, the congregation of Academy students of various ages were already moving further into the forests leading to Training Ground 101.

Always thought that name was a little on-the-nose.

"Just be careful okay? And don't stop going at it. No matter what." Yuuna-sama said, finally letting go of him.

Her husband followed suit. "Oooh and bring a souvenir."

"A souvenir? Like what?" Arata responded, massaging his sore ribs.

"Doesn't matter. Just go already!" Shiromaru exclaimed. The group was already fading from sight.

"Yeah, yeah." Arata turned away and sped off to catch up.

Everyone watched him link up with his strange ashen-haired friend, who had been walking sideways the entire time.

...I'm not gonna comment.

"He outta hearing range yet?" Shiromaru asked.

"You know you really seem to enjoy going behind Arata's back all the time." Tsume said.

"Somedays it feels like that's the only way to get things done anymore."

"Fair. Alright, you know where to go. Don't be late, _mom._ "

Yuuna-sama gasped. "I just had to make sure Arata wasn't following me back, okay? I had to make a believable diversion." She said, her arms flapping like a bird.

"Of course, dear. That's obviously why you spent the next two hours rolling him in the dirt."

"It was valuable training!"

"Hmm." Hisao-sama agreed, already heading back to the Clan Compound. Yuuna-sama pouted behind him. "Of course, dear."

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

We had finally arrived at Training Ground 101 and as soon as we passed through the gates the only thing you could see was trees. Trees everywhere, and thanks to that the place was a whole lot darker, since you couldn't see the sun anymore. There was no path, so we just kinda followed the teacher to somewhere. Once we reached a clearing Ikkaku-sensei started barking orders.

"Alright kids! Drop off your luggage at the barracks assigned to you and get back here in less than five minutes. Anyone that's late is on cleanup duty for the next three weeks!"

Oookay then. Reaching the barracks I noticed it was all unisex, and each of the beds had a name attached to them.

"Aww you guys are all the way over there!" Ayame pouted loud enough to hear from across the room.

"I think that was the point." Torune muttered, a few rows across from me.

Filing in back at the clearing several different teachers were lined up in front of us, watching and waiting. Chizuru-sensei was among them. Great.

Once the last person fell in Chizuru-sensei started speaking. "Welcome, to your introduction to what being a ninja is actually about. Throughout these next four months, you will be pushed through every way we know how to reach your limits, and then surpass them. Anyone that manages to complete the entire program will be made a full-fledged ninja. Anyone, that at anytime, gives up or falls behind, is sent back." Her voice seemed almost quiet, clashing against the sounds of the forest, yet I was sure every single person had heard her loud and clear.

Shit. Did it I just sign up for bootcamp? I did didn't I? "Starting now, your trial will begin. Start running." Confused murmurs passed through the crowd, unsure of what to do or where to go.

"START RUNNING IDIOTS!" Someone shouted, and a giant explosion of white smoke filled the area.

" **BBBBBZZZZZ!"** Out of the smoke came a _veritable storm of human-sized beetles rocketing towards us._

"Kyaaaaaa!" "AAAaaaaahhh!" Pandemonium was too kind a word for the madness that came next. Everyone sprinted away and into the trees, as far as they possibly could to avoid them. I didn't stop for anyone, running in a random direction, dodging trees and bushes as I went. They didn't give me any reprieve, at least four were hot on my tail. Were their four? I couldn't tell, I was going too fast to be able to see.

God, this is way worse than bootcamp. I'm gonna fucking die!

"NOOoooOOooo!" I couldn't tell from amidst the screams which one was mine.

* * *

 **Shizuka P.O.V.**

"So Nobuyuki has a secret base? Inside the compound? And you're only just now finding out? The compound's not that big!" I shouted. Thankfully the seals on the walls of the Head's house were enough to keep them it leaking out. "And you're telling me, he what, tortures children in there or something?" The more I found out about this the deeper it went!

Shiromaru nodded. Calm as you like. "Sounds about right, yes. But he only tortures Tomoe and her partner there."

"Small victories." I commented about as sarcastically as I could. "So he's planning a conspiracy. Inside the compound? To overthrow you guys?" Everyone else nodded their heads. "What do you want me to do about it? They already know I'm on your side so it's not like I can spy for you or anything."

"Yes, but you are expected to be near the place for your caretaker duties." Hisao-sama argued. "Basically we need you as lookout."

"It's a simple plan, really. Me and Hanako sneak in, get whatever incriminating evidence we need, and get out. But we need the place to be clear for us to do that, so we need a lookout. Hence you." Yuuna-sama said. Her partner Hanako-sama nodded next to her.

"Sounds simple enough. And it's nothing I haven't done before, but doesn't that feel too much like a trap? I mean, a secret hideout? He couldn't be more cliché if he tried."

"We're prepared for all eventualities." Hanako-sama said, smiling mischievously at Tsume-sama. I decided not to ask.

"So you'll do it?" Tsume-sama asked.

I sighed. This gave me a bad feeling. "Of course."

* * *

 **A/N.** YA KNOW. I knew that last chapter was gonna elicit interesting reactions. Yet somehow I still didn't expect the outcome. Stupid me. Anyways. I told ya I was gonna do it different. If you don't like where it's going just know it's going deeper.

To those who didn't leave though, thank you for staying! I also finally got smart enough to mark my AN notes type things at the end now. Yippee. (That was the dryest celebration ever..)

*Look up Shichi-Go-San. Totally forgot to add that in the first time..


	15. Chapter 15

" **bbbbbbbBBZZZZZZTT!** " Shit! Left turn. Into a tree. There's another one! No time for secrets!

I fell backwards, Tree Walking on the next branch as the giant beetle rushed through the space where my head was moments ago.

There's gotta be a hiding spot or something! They've been chasing me for what feels like hours.

Shit! I jumped off the tree and landed on the ground, barely rolling onto my feet. The place is chaos, I can barely see the others! There's just more beetles!

I dodged another by jumping over his stretched out horns, back into another tree, and started running again.

There's gotta be some way to get out! They can't cover the entire forest! What if—

A large smoke cloud went off, and all of a sudden the forest was quiet. What.

"ALL RECRUITS ARE TO RETURN TO THE CLEARING! IF YOU ARE NOT HERE WITHIN THIRTY SECONDS YOU WILL BE BANISHED FROM THE PROGRAM." A chakra-enhanced voice slammed through the forest.

I checked myself. I was tired, already running low on chakra. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my legs. But I was fine. No scratches on me. Weird.

Making my way over to the clearing from before, several other children came out of the woods, looking as exhausted or worse than me. I saw Torune on the other side holding on to her arm for some reason. Dear kami, it better not be broken. I highly doubt they're gonna offer medical services to us right now.

Chizuru-sensei didn't look at us once we entered the clearing, keeping her eyes on the stopwatch in her hand. "Get rid of the stragglers." She muttered to the rest of the sensei, and a few headed out.

She put her stopwatch away and addressed all the children that made it to the clearing. "Not one." She took off her glasses, her eyes closed. "Not one of you, for the entirety of the hour thought to yourselves to fight back. All of you ran. And only ran." She opened her yellow-brown eyes, and over our heads a scene played out, her eyes acting as a sort of projector.

"This is what the battlefield will look like." Above us a scene played out. It was too fast for us to see what was going on. Just blurs of green, blue and red, then a giant ball of fire. Then the ground, then grey flashes moving past, then what looked like lightning covered the scene, fizzling out into darkness.

"The battlefield, at its best, is chaos. When you are in it, your ability to envisage who you are fighting is lost. Everything you do is in reaction to something else. In war, you do not have time to think, only to do. Everything is about when and how you react. One second too slow and your efforts will cease to matter. This is why it is crucial to gain a level head when everything around you is not." Chizuru-sensei explained, her glasses back on. "Yet not one of you attacked the beetles. All of you fled the moment you tasted what being chased was actually like. None of you fought back."

The clearing was silent, no one dared to move, let alone speak. Ikkaku-sensei continued, slightly louder than her. "A ninja that acts only on fear is a dead ninja. The purpose of a battle is to fight. If you cannot do that, you are a liability. Little more than firewood to fuel the enemy's flames."

He paused, and looked each one of us in the eyes. "You will not merely be firewood. Not on my watch. I will expect you to do better starting from now on." He stepped towards us. "Every day will start like this. You are to run, and then you are to fight. What you will fight might be different from the day before, but know that if you fall behind, you will be sent back, no matter what argument you think we care about."

He rolled his neck. "Now drop down and give me a hundred."

He didn't need to yell. Everyone was already out on the floor, trying to find the energy to push themselves back up again.

He walked between the spaces. "From this point on, you will never ask questions, nor question any of our orders. Failure to do as commanded will be met with punishment, or banishment from the program."

In the corner of my eye I could see Torune struggling to lift herself back up again, her right arm shaking. Ikakku-sensei noticed the same thing. He walked over to her, and came up close.

Nonononono. "There are no exceptions. The enemy won't wait for you to recover from your injuries, so neither will I."

As the grunts and counting grew to a close, he was still there, right in front of her. Waiting. Her right arm was not a right color. Ayame, who had finished hers long ago, looked at Ikkaku-sensei with a hateful glare I didn't know she could produce.

"Eighty-nine…AKH!" She fell.

"Keep going." Ikkaku-sensei said, tone unmoving. We waited. "Keep going!" He did not.

Torune was crying by this point, to some visible disdain from the other kids. Ayame's chakra was roiling.

Torune lifted herself up with her knees, then placed her good arm on the ground, starting up her push-ups again. With one arm.

"Ninety..four.." Ikkaku-sensei said nothing, just watching.

My chest ached. My body, tired as it was, still itching to do _something._ I felt awful, just _sitting there_.

"Ninety...sev..seven…" But she.. she was actually doing it. Her tears still flowing, her face swelled up, only moving to utter her next count. But she was actually doing it.

I heard murmurs from the people next to me. They were getting unruly. But the sensei did nothing to stop it. They as well just stood there, doing nothing. I desperately tried to catch the eye of Chizuru-sensei. For what, I didn't know. It was better than doing nothing.

"Ninety...nine.." She would injure both of her arms at this rate. This had gone past a lesson. This was brutality.

 _She's seven years old!_

I could sense Killing Intent coming from Ayame's direction, and some of the murmuring dropped off. No one was willing to fight, as tired as they were.

For the last one, Torune didn't utter her count, just lifted herself up, and fell onto the ground. The clearing was silent again.

"Next. A hundred sit-ups." Groans came almost as a chorus. They were still children after all.

"The next one I hear complaining is receiving a personal escort out of here!" Ikkaku-sensei shouted.

Torune wasn't getting back up. Shit.

I couldn't do anything. Not if I wanted to risk failing, and I couldn't do that. For all that I didn't want to fight this war, I needed to become strong, and strong fast. Performing well here could mean more favorable selections for jounin-sensei. Which, if they liked you meant they would hold off on sending you out to train you more. I needed that opportunity. Getting put with a bad team usually means you fail the test, and I can't have that. Not if I wanted to survive in this world. I _need_ this opportunity.

I pushed my upper body up. Rhythmically, hoping the ache of my muscles would distract me from the child lying down in the corner of my vision. It didn't. Yet I couldn't close my eyes. I couldn't ignore this.

But still there was.. No way.

She was getting back up.

She was getting back up, and shifting her body to a pull up position.

And then doing them. Still crying.

My eyes felt heavier in my eye sockets. Ayame's Killing Intent still pulsed through the clearing, steady and pervasive.

We finished the exercise.

"You will head back to the barracks, get cleaned up, and sleep. Tomorrow we will outline what your regular days here will be like. For now, you are to get rest. Dismissed." Ikkaku-sensei ordered, and then left in a blur of leaves.

We were all alone. All the other sensei had left before Ikkaku-sensei did. As soon as the leaves dissipated Ayame rushed over to Torune, guarding her from the rest of the children, eyes a mad red.

I didn't have the courage to go over there, so I just sat, watching the rest of the tired children slowly leave to the bath.

"You're so strong, you know that? So strong! Way strong, you know that?"

* * *

 **Hisao P.O.V.**

"Look. Are you sure about this? You're going to be walking right into a trap. No matter how prepared you are, it's still dangerous." I said. Our bed, comfy as it was, couldn't assuage my worries for tonight.

Yuuna sighed. They'd had this conversation many times, usually ending in the same result. It didn't stop me from trying, however. She didn't meet my eyes.

"Who else would we send out? We can't risk sending out someone we don't trust implicitly. And right now.. Well, you know."

I bit my cheek. The tides of power inside the clan were slowly but surely shifting. He kept losing more and more supporters inside the clan by the day it felt like. Haimaru so far seemed to be the figurehead, but it was pretty much an open secret that Nobuyuki was responsible for the shift. With that, any people he trusted, and were good enough for this mission quickly started approaching zero.

Maybe it was paranoia, but they couldn't risk any sort of counterintelligence at this point in the game.

"But Shizuka-"

"Shizuka is injured." Yuuna cut me off, finally facing me. "And whatever she was before that is irrelevant."

Hanako from her place on Yuuna's side of the bed lifted up a sleepy head. "You two are still arguing about this?"

I shot her a look, and she put her head down on her palms.

"What I don't understand is why Nobuyuki is trying to push us out in the first place, and politically at that. An assassination would've been a faster, if cruder method to get rid of us. Yet he hasn't actually pushed for any major reform to justify a takeover." Aomaru contributed.

"You don't think it's personal then?" Hanako asked.

I scoffed. "No, it's definitely personal. The looks he sends me every time we meet eyes are evidence enough." I stroked my chin. "So he has some sort of motive that targets me specifically, but I might not be his major target. Wait no, I still don't see it." Figuring out Nobuyuki's reasons, sans just being power hungry, has been a pastime for many months now. And a distraction, I just realised. I sent a mood of annoyance across the telepathic link to Aomaru. We would have words later.

Hanako raised her head slowly, moonlight just bright enough to highlight her orange fur. "What if he's trying to push out the Head family in general? Get rid of us, and start a new one. Or just.. Have just the clan council be the acting power."

I frowned. "That's ridiculous. It would weaken the clan significantly, inside and out. We're at war. We can't afford to look weak now of all times. Nobuyuki of all people knows that."

"Yes, but if the motive is personal.." Hanako insisted.

I sighed. "We're not getting anywhere with this. We need more information, see how deep this really goes."

"Which is why it's crucial for me to go tomorrow." Yuuna insisted. She put a hand on my arm. "I know it's risky, but you've gotta trust me alright? There's a lot more at risk here than just me." _Our kids,_ went unsaid. It didn't need to be.

I acquiesced. "Just be careful. Please." Her eyes burned into mine.

"Hey! I'll be with her, so she'll be fine. When have you ever known me to let you down?" Hanako boasted.

"Last week. I asked you to bring Arata, and you brought me that Torune girl instead. By her collar. Did you know how long I had to apologize to the Akimichi for that one?"

She shot me a grin. "She volunteered! I couldn't say no!" That's Yuuna's partner alright. Never any question on that.

"Yeah right she did." I smiled.

"She did! I swear it on my-" I tuned her out, shifting in bed so I'd lie down, and closed my eyes.

"Hey, you even listenin' anymore? He ain't even listenin' no more. How rude."

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

"Tell me. What use does a kunai have on the battlefield?" Chizuru-sensei asked. I assumed it was rhetorical. Her voice was chakra-enhanced so you could hear it from just about anywhere. "In truth, most genin could easily dodge a barrage of these in succession. So why employ a weapon with such a significant miss rate?"

You know, every time adults in this world start using big words like that I really wonder if any of these kids are even absorbing half of what they say.

The thought made my mouth quirk up a bit, just enough to distract me from the ache in my hands and arms. We've been practicing kunai and shuriken throwing for about two hours now. Nonstop. Targets were dispersed randomly around the forest area we were in, and if the sensei didn't see you throwing any, they'd throw some of them your way. Sometimes they did it anyway, just to see if we could dodge them. Practice ones of course.

"The answer is simple. Chakra. Your most valuable resource on the battlefield, nevertheless crucial is not food, water, or medical aid. It's chakra. And jutsu takes chakra. Most ninja, using solely jutsu in an encounter will run out of chakra in less than ten minutes. Battles in wars can take days. You need alternatives."

She threw a shuriken in her hand to deflect a stray kunai coming for her face. "Know this. Even if only one in a thousand hits, you have time. Statistics from the Second War showed that almost 35% of injuries were directly from thrown weapons. Do not underestimate their power."

Which, I guess made sense. Putting it in RPG terms, most ninja are glass cannons. High speed and attack, low defense. A kunai to the jugular, no matter who you are, results in death. Well except for Orochimaru. Or Hidan. Or Sasori. Or- You know what, never mind.

A flash at the edge of my vision took me out of my muse. A shuriken was headed suspiciously close to Torune's head. Ayame deflected it with a kunai before I even raised my hand. Her Killing Intent was perfunctory at this point, its effects waning by the day. Her anger at the situation didn't abate, though, and there were several close calls where I had to reel her back in.

It had been a week since our first day. After everyone had left a medic came over and looked at Torune's arm. He didn't do too much so I assumed the damage wasn't extensive. At least, I could hope. She seemed fine, but you never knew.

Since then, we tried to keep Torune as close to us as possible. Bullying in the ninja world is no joke. Being a.. less than favored person in my clan certainly opened my eyes to that. I sometimes forgot we lived in a conformist society, no matter how individualistic Konoha tried to portray itself as. If a large enough group of people disapprove of something, the rest would be remiss not to follow along, and probably worsen the situation. The several ruined clothes and missed meals from my earlier days attested to that.

Another shuriken made it close to Torune. I batted it away this time. Ayame was fuming at this point.

"Guys.." Torune said, looking at the ground guiltily.

"Keep practicing, Torune. We'll handle it." I tried to sound reassuring. I hoped it worked.

Three minutes later, another shuriken was headed for Torune. Ayame slammed it away with her kunai.

"RRRAAAAAAA!" Ayame flew, monkey stance already in place. Shit. Not good.

I heard a crash from the direction the shuriken came from, and raced over. Torune followed me.

I found Ayame hunched over some boy, holding a kunai to his throat, only held at bay by the boy's arms. They were shaking, and he wouldn't hold for long. Four more children behind him rushed to come to his aid.

I made eye contact with Torune and veered to the left, quickly going through hand signs.

 _Tigeroxdograbbitsnake-_ "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" A gust of wind just strong enough to stall their approach slammed through them. Tsume had warned me against trying to learn two nature transformations at the same time, but a few of the wind jutsu just seemed too attractive to pass up, and most lightning jutsu were too chakra intensive to be viable this early on. So, as she would put it, fuck it.

Just after my wind stopped them in their tracks, Torune's Multi-Sized hands slapped them away. Two of them managed to dodge, and jumped backwards. The other two weren't so lucky and slammed against tree trunks.

The distraction was enough for the boy to wriggle out of Ayame's hold and run back to his friends. Just then, two more showed up from the sides. One of them looked vaguely familiar. Red eyes, messy black hair.

"Genma! Stop running and let me tear you apart!" Ayame screamed savagely.

The boy who ran from Ayame seemed a lot more confident surrounded by his other friends. "I really don't understand why you stand up for her, Ayame-chan. Scum like that don't deserve to be ninja."

Ayame seemed ready to pounce again, despite the amount of children who looked ready to fight. Six turned to seven as another entered the field. A few of them I recognized from our Training Ground group. That was.. disappointing. Ayame just seemed to turn more mad at the sight. I didn't know a child this small could unleash this much Killing Intent.

Another one came through to the front, making eight. His blue hair and lazy but observant eyes were familiar to me. "You know the rules Ayame. Shinobi Rule #25. A shinobi must never show their tears."

"Asuma!" Another wave of Killing Intent. "I don't care about the rules! Call back your cronies before I burn them to a crisp!"

Shit. Where are the sensei? Chizuru-sensei was near not five minutes ago. I stretched my chakra sensing. There were more children at the fringes, mostly watching and staying well away. No sensei. Not good, not good, not good.

No matter how skilled for her age Ayame was, three against eight is never good odds. Especially against older kids who have more chakra. Suddenly I wished Shiromaru was here. We hadn't gotten the Gatsuuga down yet, but he would be helpful all the same.

"Just try it." Asuma challenged, palming kunai in his hands.

The time for talking was over, and everyone prepared for battle.

"Caged Mice." Ayame called out, lining out our battle strategy. We had trained together of course. Practiced for scenarios like this. The plan would be incredibly risky with this many people, but there was no time to argue logic right now.

Kunai and shuriken unleashed upon our spot, and we dodged each in three different directions. Ayame ran straight for Asuma, who had begun a sequence of hand seals.

I didn't get to see much more, as two chased after my position. Some rando and a Hyuuga. Not ideal.

Forsaking Four Legs for right now, as it wouldn't have much use against a Hyuuga, I threw my own kunai and shuriken and watched them split.

"Four!" I heard amidst the sounds of fighting. Already? Ok then.

Surprisingly, the rando got to me first, and I had to dodge his leg coming for my skull, which put me right in the Hyuuga's path. I jumped over him, and deflected the shuriken he threw at me while in mid-air. I retreated again, this time in the opposite direction, back to the beginning, then to the side. I retreated into a tree just long enough for them not to see me.

Hmm. The Hyuuga would be a major problem for this plan.

"Bestial Illusion: Doddering Haze."

Both of them stopped chasing me for a few seconds, just long enough for me to throw some dirt into the Hyuuga's eyes, eliciting a yell from him. "Three!" I heard.

I darted away again, into another tree, hoping it would hide enough of my body.

 _Clone Jutsu._ A clone rushed out of the tree, and thankfully they followed him instead. "Two!" The clone shouted, me following a safe distance behind their chase of him.

Reaching the same place we were at the start, I sensed Torune on the other side, with Ayame's clone already heading for the middle.

It was actually working!

"One!" Ayame's clone yelled, making up the quartet.

I sneakily paced over to Torune, hoping Ayame would be able to follow the cue I left her.

A bunch of kids, having already cut through the clones looked confused at seeing each other so bundled up together. And then they realized.

Ayame rushed up to us just as they started spreading out again. Torune was already through the hand seals.

"Earth Style: Giant Pillar Jutsu!" She pushed up a pillar of earth under us, lifting us about ten meters from the ground.

"Kai!" Ayame sounded out at the same time, and the forest filled up with ash. She had planted a tag seal on the Four count if all went right. She spent a good amount of time filling up the tag seal with her ash, since she couldn't form a cloud big enough on the fly with her amount of chakra.

But wait. This is too much. Way too much. She actually wants to kill them?! No, it's still too thin, and they've spread out enough. Thanks to Asuma probably.

She ran through the hand seals. Do I stop her? This may be the only chance we have, but I can't allow her to do this, even if they'll likely come out of it alive. That moment of hesitation cost me, as she took a breath and got ready to spew.

"Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning!"

Just as the first hint of ash came out of her mouth, a hand snaked out of the pillar we stood on and uppercutted Ayame in the mouth. The genjutsu unravelled just then, and the girl with red eyes and black hair came to stand between us.

That's Kurenai! Torune took her in her giant hands, and threw. Hopefully that would put her out for a while.

Suddenly, the pillar shook.

They got to us already? Crap. "We're sitting ducks up here!"

"We gotta do something!" Torune shouted.

"Arata! Lightning rod it! We'll jump!" Ayame ordered. I nodded.

People were running up the pillar. I had less than two seconds.

"Lightning Release: Depth Charge!" I chanted, just as they jumped, and the pillar shook and broke apart, lightning travelling down and down. Everyone jumped off before the electricity got to them.

We landed in a tree, just south of our opponents. We were lucky with that one. Because they're such a big group coordinating and strategizing is going to be much harder, which is likely what saved us just now. They're not approaching now, fixing their earlier mistake.

"Turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle!" Ayame repeated, getting more frantic and less angry. We retreated, then kept going south.

I took out the last of my kunai and handed a few to Torune. They're coming now.

"Two from each side, one is going around." I told them, sensing our opponents movements in the forest.

I checked myself. "Chakra levels? I've got a little over half." I asked.

"Half." Torune managed to get out.

"A third. The ash had to not hit us." Ayame said, a bit sheepishly.

Well shit. "I'll take ranged, then." Not my favored position, but it would have to do.

"Guys… I appreciate it, but you don't have to do this for me." Torune stuttered.

"Yes we do! We're always here for you. No matter what, right Arata?" Ayame said.

"Of course." I resolved myself. If there was one Leaf value I could agree with, it's standing by your comrades, no matter what. Though it's kinda ironic that we're fighting for that against them.

Also _where_ are the sensei? We've been running for a while, and we haven't run into anyone at all yet. The forest is big, but not that big. Speaking of..

"Incoming. All of them."

We stopped. Torune went through hand seals. "Earth Release: Castle Protection." An earth structure a few meters high and wide formed around us, finishing with putting a ceiling over our heads.

"What next?" I asked Ayame, hoping the desperate tint wasn't noticeable.

She opened her mouth to answer.

* * *

 **Hayama P.O.V.**

"We _have_ to do something!" I shouted. Anko, Hyuurou, Tomoe. None of them were doing anything! They were just watching!

"They're—They're older kids! We can't fight them. And they're right anyway." Anko stuttered out.

I—I couldn't actually believe it. I couldn't! "You're just gonna let them fight on their own?! They're our friends! We can't leave them!"

I had never shouted like this to anyone, ever. But right now, I really didn't care. I turned to Tomoe. "When you told me to avoid Arata because he was mean to you I believed you! But you lied to me, and then I forgave you! And—And now you won't go help me?!"

Tomoe flinched. "I can't.. Nobuyuki-sama would flip if he found out."

"Then don't let him find out." I rebutted.

Hyuurou stepped up. "Guys? They're leaving. I think they're getting chased through the forest? That way." He pointed to the right, where now that the ash was dispersed enough we could actually see them running that way. The big group stayed behind for a little bit, and then went after them. "Maybe we should help them after all. It'll be more even."

"And risk our necks for Arata and a weakling!? Hell no!" Anko liked to say what she felt, and usually that didn't bother me, but today it did.

I pointed at her. "Torune is way stronger than you will ever be. Even when she was crying, she did the whole thing. With _one hand._ And Ayame is still there! Even if you don't care about Arata you have to help them!" Anko's face clammed, but she didn't say anything.

"Fine! I'll go on my own then!" I said.

"No." Tomoe said. "You can't go on your own. You don't have your bokken with you!"

"It doesn't matter. I can still fight. I think." To be honest I was really scared. All of those older kids, and then just me..

But I couldn't back down now. Not when the people that first wanted to be my friends needed me.

Tomoe and Anko looked at each other, then at Hyuurou. He spoke up. "I think we should do it, guys. I couldn't ever call myself a hero if I walked away from this."

"Kouta.." Anko muttered. "Okay. Fine. Let's go! But don't say I didn't warn you! We just have to make sure that Nobuyuki guy doesn't find out right? Easy."

Yes! I could have whooped for joy right then, but remembered the situation. I grinned. "Alright, let's go."

Tomoe seemed reluctant, but opened her pouch all the same. She took out a few shuriken, and put them between her fingers. "Okay. Okay. He just doesn't have to find out. We can do this."

She nodded at him, and they sped off.

* * *

 **Arata P.O.V.**

"It's not gonna hold out for long!" I shouted. "It's now or never!"

Torune nodded. "Okay, down in three!"

I went through hand seals again, hoping this would get at least one. Ayame did the same on the opposite side of me.

"Two!" The walls shook, and I knew it wouldn't hold out for long.

"One." A particularly violent lightning jutsu managed to spear through a large chunk, and a few children were already coming in.

"Now!" Just as she proclaimed that, the remaining walls pushed outwards and the ceiling retreated, allowing us a space to jump over.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

"Wind Style: Vacuum Bullets!"

We jumped through the space left behind, spewing balls of air and fire at all the encroaching children.

What we didn't prepare for was the _onslaught_ of shuriken and kunai headed for us. I was able to stop a few with the vacuum bullets, but it couldn't block all of them. Some ricocheted off my body, leaving scratch marks. They were practice ones, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Shit.

I landed on a rough part of damaged earth wall, just narrowly avoiding landing on a kunai that had managed to stick in my arm.

I took it out roughly, employing more chakra to numb the pain. And yep, bleeding. My chakra sensing started going haywire all of a sudden, and black moving oh kami, bugs!

Aburame bugs encircled me, caging me. The hairs on my neck and arms started raising in alarm. Not shortly after there were more children around me. Three of them looked down at me, sneering. One of them was the Aburame, holding her arm over me menacingly.

"You almost shocked me, you bastard! I'll get you back for that now. Serves you right for sticking up for that loser." Rando from before shouted. He went through hand seals.

"Fire release—"

"Soushuriken no jutsu!"

From the trees behind me, a dozen shuriken whisked in the direction of the kids, making them dodge.

"Ha!" Just as that happened, _Kouta_ came out of the clearing in an overhead kick, aiming for rando. He missed, just barely.

The shuriken that missed earlier then circled back around, coming straight for the Aburame. In worry, he recalled his kikaichuu to shield him.

Kouta and Anko, of all people, came to land in front of me.

"Ha! Take that sucker!"Anko yelled.

"Nice. Arata, can you fight?" Kouta asked.

I fired up the Four Legs in response. "Any more reinforcements?"

"Tomoe is with Ayame, and Hayama joined Torune." He said. I smiled. Couldn't ask for much more.

 _And so the balance shifts._

"Let's kick some ass."

""Hell yeah!""

* * *

 **A/N.** Sorry for the cliffhanger. My mind is fuzzy, and I want a chapter out sooner rather than later. Trying something different with fight scenes, hoping it pays off.

HEY! VERY IMPORTANT! There's a **poll** on my bio that needs votes. So if you could do that please that would be great!

Thanks for reading. Bye.


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